The Might of Nation

I got this opportunity to deliver a small talk on Indian Ballistic Missile Program in front of Spartan leaders. Obviously, it is an honor and privilege too but a challenge as I was completely unaware about this topic. The first impression was that it must be about India’s ballistic missile capability such as Agni series.

As soon as I started my research, it was interesting to know that it is not about the ballistic missile but it is India’s indigenous program of anti-ballistic missile system. The first thought which crossed my mind after knowing this was ‘WOW’. It was something new for me, and sounded interesting. It is obvious that if a speaker feel interested about a topic then he can deliver it really well to the audience and when the audience is highly educated and intellect then the challenge becomes more difficult.

India got independence in 1947 and soon we faced our new enemy Pakistan in 1948 in the beautiful landscape of Jammu and Kashmir. 1962 was the year of lessons learnt for military might of India when China taught us few lessons. In 1965 and 1971, we showed the world of our military capability and strength of giving birth to a new nation respectively.

Time shows us the right path, and our adversaries has upgraded their weaponries with time to dominate us. In the year 1995, Pakistan procured M-11 surface to surface missiles from China and seeing the threat India procured S-300 SAM missiles from Russia. 1998, both India and Pakistan became nuclear power in south East Asia and in 1999 world witnessed the first war between two nuclear nations.

After Kargil war, India realized that to counter nuclear and ballistic missile threat from other countries, there is need to develop anti-ballistic Missile system and thus Indian Ballistic Missile Program came into picture.

1.       40 public and private companies were involved in the development of the program.

2.       Companies such as Larsen & Tourbo also contributed.

3.       It is a multi-layered system.

4.       It has two tier.

5.       The first one is Prithvi Air Defence, which has capability of countering any missile at an altitude of 50 to 80 kms.

6.       The second one is Advanced Air Defence which has the capability of taking down any missile flying at a height of 30 kms.

7.       The second phase aims to take down ICBMs of having range of five thousand kilometers.

Chankya once said that one should know his enemy and be prepared to counter the threat. India is going on the same lines and yes it is capable enough to overcome any such threat.