NEW DELHI — India has conducted a test of a nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missile, the country’s Defense Research and Development Organisation said.
India’s Defense Research and Development Organisation, or DRDO, carried out the launch off the Odisha coast on Friday evening.
India’s Defense Ministry said that the DRDO and the Indian Air Force jointly completed the first flight trial of a system called the Tactical Advanced Range Augmentation, or TARA, off the Odisha coast on Thursday. It is India’s first indigenous “modular range extension kit,” capable of converting ordinary bombs into precision-guided weapons.
Defense sources said the missile tested may not look like the Agni-6, but it is certainly in the ICBM class. However, DRDO has not yet officially announced the test. Earlier reports said India was planning to test an ICBM with a range of more than 10,000 kilometers.
If India truly acquires this capability, it could strike any country in the world, including the United States. So far, only the United States, Russia, China and North Korea are known to have ground-launched ICBMs, with ranges of more than 12,000 kilometers.
A few days before this test, the DRDO chairman said all technical preparations to finalize the Agni-6 missile were complete, and that with government approval, they would proceed to build the missile.
On Wednesday, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party posted a video on the social media platform X about the Agni-6 missile, offering a strong hint. The post said: “With a range of more than 10,000 kilometers and MIRV technology, Agni-6 is set to make history. This missile will make India’s security impenetrable and place us in the ranks of the world’s most powerful nations.”
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report