India set to test a new long-range rocket next week

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle08.asp?xfile=data/international/2012/April/international_April376.xml&section=international

Satarupa Bhattacharjya (Reuters)

13 April 2012

NEW DELHI - India is within days of test-firing a long-range rocket capable of reaching deep into Asia and Europe, a move that would bring the emerging power into a small club of nations with intercontinental defence capabilities.

Scientists are preparing to launch the nuclear warhead-enabled Agni V, with a range of more than 5,000 kilometers (3,100 miles), between April 18 and 20, a defence ministry official with knowledge of the matter told Reuters on Friday. The official asked not to be named.

Only the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council -China, Russia, France, the United States and the United Kingdom - along with Israel, are believed to have such long distance missiles.

The launch will be closely monitored by India’s nuclear-armed rivals China and Pakistan and by Western countries, but is unlikely to draw the kind of criticism aimed at North Korea after its own failed long-range rocket launch on Thursday.

[IDemo]

1. "Missile launch technical support, this is....Sean, how may I help you?"

[Vehl]

8. :P

Ironically India is the world's largest supplier of Remote sensing Data, as it Owns the largest constellation of earth observation satellites.

Indian Remote Sensing (IRS) satellite system was commissioned with the launch of IRS-1A, in 1988. With eleven satellites in operation, IRS is the largest civilian remote sensing satellite constellation in the world providing imageries in a variety of spatial resolutions, spectral bands and swaths. The data is used for several applications covering agriculture, water resources, urban development, mineral prospecting, environment, forestry, drought and flood forecasting, ocean resources and disaster management.

[mazzarro]

2. Now can we get the western governments -especially

the US, UK and France to through really loud hissy-fit about this and call up a special session of the UN? How about talking of bombing to stop more of the rocket development?

[sinkingfeeling]

4. I agree and where was Nixon when India got the bomb?

[Vehl]

6. The Irony is, Nixon made India get the bomb

When West Pakistani soldiers started massacring East Pakistani(Bangladeshi) civilians by the millions(yes, millions), India invaded East Pakistan in order to support the Bangladeshi freedom Fighters.

Nixon ignored any and all reports he received about the Pakistani atrocities in Bangladesh and secretly sent weapons and meterial to Pakistan to fight India. When Pakistan was about to surrender, as a desperate measure he sent Us Carrier fleet, armed with nuclear weapons to the bay of Bengal to threaten India. Furthermore him and Kissinger begged China to Invade India. Indra Gandhi, the female PM of India did not back down, went ahead and gave East Pakistan independence, forming the new nation of Bangladesh.

This show of nuclear power forced India to rethink its non-nuclear weapons stand(Even though it was the second nation in Asia(apart from Russia) to build a nuclear reactor, it had, till then refrained from making weapons out of them).

As early as 26 June 1946, Jawaharlal Nehru, soon to be India's first Prime Minister, announced:

“ As long as the world is constituted as it is, every country will have to devise and use the latest devices for its protection. I have no doubt India will develop her scientific researches and I hope Indian scientists will use the atomic force for constructive purposes. But if India is threatened, she will inevitably try to defend herself by all means at her disposal."

Three years after Nixon's efforts to threaten India with the possible use of Nuclear Weapons, India tested its first Nuclear device, in 1974.

The United States supported Pakistan both politically and materially. U.S. President Richard Nixon denied getting involved in the situation, saying that it was an internal matter of Pakistan. But when Pakistan's defeat seemed certain, Nixon sent the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise to the Bay of Bengal,a move deemed by the Indians as a nuclear threat. Enterprise arrived on station on 11 December 1971. On 6 and 13 December, the Soviet Navy dispatched two groups of ships, armed with nuclear missiles, from Vladivostok; they trailed U.S. Task Force 74 in the Indian Ocean from 18 December until 7 January 1972.
The Nixon administration provided support to Pakistan President Yahya Khan during the turmoil.

Nixon and Henry Kissinger feared Soviet expansion into South and Southeast Asia. Pakistan was a close ally of the People's Republic of China, with whom Nixon had been negotiating a rapprochement and which he intended to visit in February 1972. Nixon feared that an Indian invasion of West Pakistan would mean total Soviet domination of the region, and that it would seriously undermine the global position of the United States and the regional position of America's new tacit ally, China. In order to demonstrate to China the bona fides of the United States as an ally, and in direct violation of the US Congress-imposed sanctions on Pakistan, Nixon sent military supplies to Pakistan and routed them through Jordan and Iran, while also encouraging China to increase its arms supplies to Pakistan.

The Nixon administration also ignored reports it received of the genocidal activities of the Pakistani Army in East Pakistan, most notably the Blood telegram.
more here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bangladesh_Liberation_War

[msongs]

3. exactly how many far away nations does India feel the need to threaten? nt

[hack89]

5. Not far away nations - more like their immediate neighbors

China and Pakistan specifically.

[Vehl]

7. Yep

Pakistan is thoroughly under Indian range, and so is China, but the current push is for SLBM's with greater range so the Indian Nuclear Submarines and their escorts could stay deep in the Pacific/Atlantic/South East Asian oceans and still have all of China covered, as a insurance against any possible Chinese first strike.