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a hat-trick for missile technologists and the armed forces in the last two days, Agni-I, which can carry nuclear weapons and has range of 700 km, was flight-tested successfully from the Wheeler's Island, off the Orissa coast, on Sunday. The ship-based Dhanush and Prithvi-II were test-fired in a salvo mode on Saturday. The medium range surface-to-surface Agni-I, fired at 1.07 hours from a mobile launcher, homed in on the target within a few metres of accuracy as it splashed down in the Bay of Bengal. The launch was carried out by Army personnel as part of a training exercise. Best-ever...

The Indian Navy has successfully test-fired the BrahMos supersonic anti-ship cruise missile, the Indian-Russian joint venture BrahMos Aerospace said on Sunday. The missile, fired from a new vertical launch pad, hit the target in the Bay of Bengal, BrahMos Aerospace said. The BrahMos missile has a range of 290 km (180 miles) and can carry a conventional warhead of up to 300 kg (660 lbs). It can effectively engage ground targets from an altitude as low as 10 meters (30 feet) and has a top speed of Mach 2.8, which is about three times faster than the U.S.-made subsonic Tomahawk...

India's new Advanced Air Defence (AAD) interceptor missile, being developed to destroy hostile missiles encountered coordination problem and failed to take off during a planned launch from the Integrated Test Range at Wheeler Island off Orissa coast on Monday. "Coordinated exercise between target missile Prithvi from Chandipur and the indigenously built interceptor from Wheeler Island could not take place properly during the planned trial," defence sources said. Though Prithvi - the target missile - was test-fired at 10.02 hrs from a mobile launcher from ITR's launch complex-3 at Chandipur-on-sea, 15 km from here, the interceptor missile failed to blast off,...

): With an eye to develop a full fledged multi-layer Ballistic Missile Defence system, India is likely to test-fire its indigenously designed and developed Advanced Air Defence (AAD) missile from the Integrated Test Range (ITR) off Orissa coast today. The AAD missile is capable of destroying any hostile ballistic missile at low altitude situation, defence sources said on Saturday. Range integration work at the ITR for the proposed trial is complete and the test is likely to be conducted today, they said. The target missile, a modified indigenously built 'Prithvi' posing as an enemy missile, would first be lifted off...

Warning of tsunami greater than 2004 By Roger Highfield, Science Editor Last Updated: 6:01pm BST 05/09/2007 Tens of millions of people who live in the Bay of Bengal face the threat of a tsunami as massive as the one that devastated the Sumatran coast in 2004, a leading geologist warns today. Satellite images showing Banda Aceh before (top) and after (bottom) the 2004 tsunami While the Boxing Day 2004 disaster took the scientific community by surprise, killing around a quarter of a million people, one geologist who had sounded the alert about the dangers in the Indian Ocean now says...

WASHINGTON: The ongoing naval wargame in the Bay of Bengal involving five nations does not "target" China but is designed to shape strategic choices by regional actors like India, a senior Pentagon official has said. "This exercise does not target China. It is designed to shape strategic choices being made by all regional actors. Malabar is a sign of responsible stakeholders interested in promoting peace and security by a visible presence," said Brigadier General John Toolan, Principal Director for South and South East Asia at the US Department of Defence. The four-day 'Malabar Exercise' started on September 4 with the...

A multilateral naval drill involving India, the US and three other nations begins in the Bay of Bengal Tuesday, an event that India says is a pointer to the country's growing importance on the world stage. This is the first time a joint exercise on this scale involving 25 vessels is being conducted off India's eastern seaboard and New Delhi has repeatedly sought to allay apprehensions that the drill had military overtones. 'There is no military alignment. It's only an exercise,' Defence Minister A.K. Antony has said of Malabar-2007 that runs Sep 4-9 and involves the navies of India, the...

Scientist foresaw Sumatran quake Research showed area was ripe for temblor By Kimm Groshong , Staff WriterArticle Published: Sunday, March 06, 2005 - 8:25:08 PM PST PASADENA -- When the magnitude-9.0 earthquake and resultant tsunami devastated Sumatra and much of the Bay of Bengal on Dec. 26, Kerry Sieh's premonition became a nightmarish reality. The Caltech geology professor had studied the history of giant earthquakes just south of the epicenter for about a decade and knew full well the damage such a major quake in that part of the world could inflict. He had tried to get the word out...