India's Nuclear Capabilities

India is quite ahead in its Nuclear program. Thanks to the effort of honorable A.P.J Abdul Kalam and an initiative by our former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Altough the nuclear program got a go ahead in 1974, it was only in 1998 that the first Nuclear test took place with operation Sakti.

It is believed that India has a stockpile of 30-35 nuclear warheads.But recently I had attended a seminar of DRDO (Defence Research And Development Organization) which said that India has a declared nuclear no-first-use policy. Which means in any case India is not going to use Nuclear weapons unless the enemy uses it.

DRDO is presently the main organization handling Nuclear technology with two reactors one at Bhabha Atomic center imported from U.S, and the other indigenous Dhruv reactor.

India has several aircraft that are nominally considered "nuclear capable", the Mirage 2000, Mig-27(out dated), and now our very own indigenous Tejas. Tejas is developed by ADA (Aeronautical Development organization) along with the efforts of DRDO, NAL ( National Aerospace Lab), HAL ( Hindustan Aeronatics Limited ) and many other private organizations.

In the seminar by DRDO it was also shown that India has developed short and medium-range nuclear-capable missiles. These are the Prithvi (range 250 km), and the Agni-II (range 2500 km). Both have their own advantages. More missiles are under development. Other missiles along with the above two are

Nag , an anti-tank guided missile
Prithvi, a surface-to-surface battlefield missile
Akash, a swift, medium-range surface-to-air missile
Trishul, a quick-reaction surface-to-air missile with a shorter range
Agni, an intermediate range ballistic missile, the mightiest of them all
There are different versions of this missiles for various purposes.

Also DRDO is in the process of developing technologies that will help protect us from the enemies nuclear attack. It is developing Air defence systems which can intercept an incoming missile and destroy it mid-air. This is a recent news which proves this fact.

On 06 Dec, 07 indian scientists launched an indigenously developed solid fuel rocket called the Advanced Air Defence (AAD) interceptor from Wheeler island to destroy a Prithvi target missile launched earlier from the Interim Test Range at Chandipur 72 Km to its North. The split second precision with which scores of systems and sub-systems were made to function flawlessly drew global attention to this spectacular achievement. read more...

So it is quite clear that India is fully capable to face Nuclear war. But we should pray that it never occurs. Hats off to Dr. A.P.J Kalam, DRDO and other organizations which made it possible.

Read it on Indiastudychannel