It was the maiden canister-based trial of the country’s ICBM, Agni-V, but the last momentous event in the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) for its Director-General and Scientific Adviser to Defence Minister Avinash Chander, who relinquished office on Saturday after a distinguished career.
Talking to The Hindu from Wheeler Island after the successful test-firing, Dr. Chander said the canister technology would give the armed forces the most potent weapon which would survive the no-first-use policy and then deliver. He said that very few countries in the world had such capability and that the successful launch from a canister was a “dream come true” for him personally.
Observing that the success achieved by Agni-V was spot-on, he said it gave the country a much-awaited system. “By year-end we are going to have it inducted.” It was a landmark for a country which had zero capability in missiles 40 years ago to have developed all-round capability with success on multiple fronts.
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Expressing happiness that the entire effort was indigenous, he said total capability was created in each sphere like telemetry. “I consider it a milestone event in the history of missile capability in the country,” he added.