India is ahead of Chinese missile programme, says DRDO chief - India News and Travel Times Provides India-centric and other News and Features

Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) Director VK Saraswat on Wednesday said that India's anti-ballistic missile defence programme is ahead of China's programme. Addressing media here, Saraswat said: "This is one area we are ahead of the Chinese." He announced that Sunday's test of the Agni- III missile would clear the decks for the induction of the missile into the services. The test, carried out by Strategic Forces Command sets the stage for the induction of nuclear-tipped missile. China had only one missile in the 2500-km category, the DF-21 and was now focused only on building intercontinental range missiles (ICBMs) of the DF-31 and DF-41 in the 6000- 10,000 km range. "But our accuracies are better than the Chinese missiles," Dr Saraswat said. He, however, declined to mention the Circular Error Probability or CEP of the Agni-III China, in January 2007, had displayed its anti-ballistic missile capabilities while knocking out a disused satellite in space. This was the world's first declared A-SAT test. Earlier in January, the Chinese declared that they had successfully tested a ground-based mid-range anti ballistic missile. "China only had the building blocks for an ATBM," Saraswat said. "We started our ATBM programme in 1999 and in terms of capabilities, we are way ahead of them," he added. Saraswat said India had perfected the building blocks for an A-SAT weapon but there were no plans to field any such system.