The test of the Agni III
I would like to start by congratulating the scientists at DRDO for making this happen. They put a lot of work into this and I am glad that their efforts paid off. I wish them all the best for any future projects.That said, I want to speak to the reactions to the Agni test.
1) The Agni test is not a threat to China. The missile is largely a technology demonstrator. All talk of the Agni doing something to China or Diego Garcia is nonsense and people should stop talking nonsense in matters of national security. (NDTV.. this means you!)
2) There is no connection between the Agni test and the Indo-US nuclear deal negotiations. There is no connection between the Agni test and the latest NPA attack on ISRO. The Agni test is a part of a wider program of testing of advanced technologies, these programs have their own time schedules. There is no connection with any Pakistani tests - all this "tit-for-tat" rubbish should stop (Karan Thapar - CNN IBN - this means you!)
3) The Jpeg-Avi-Photoshop brigade is busy patrolling the internet and I can understand their happiness. However when the Hon. R M says there is no "Sagarika" missile. It means there is no Sagarika missile. Sagarika Annexe is quite simply the annexe to a building called Sagarika. We do not name our buildings after our missiles. There are limits to the kind of things one should make up - remember if you have real faith your beard will turn red on its own, you don't have to apply henna.
Allah Hafiz.
posted by maverick @ 7:05 AM
18 Comments:
Maverick,
"remember if you have real faith your beard will turn red on its own, you don't have to apply henna"
I think you were trying to drop a hint regarding the SLBM program over there. Could you elaborate on that a bit for the more dense readers like me?
As far as I know, Sagarika is a red herring for the NPAs to chase. The SLBM program goes by another name, not quite so poetic.
Hi Anonymous,
There is no SLBM program.
A number of capabilities already exist that can launch missiles carrying conventional warheads from sea. These are not nuclear delivery vehicles or options and should not be confused for an SLBM program. A great many people are making this inference based on programs they think they know about.
The entire SLBM thing is the result of a series of deliberate media plants and NPA led fishing expeditions sponsorred by lobbies within the US government. The only ones who are clinging to this are Indian youngsters surfing the internet. These misguided youth are confusing the non existant weapons for icons of national strength.
A nuclear triad was mentioned in the draft of the nuclear doctrine, however as you may recall, the raucous debate raised by the draft ensured that most of the ideas presented in it were never fully evolved. A lot of what was said in the doctrine remains on paper alone and there are no significant moves towards achieving anything out there.
This is the root cause of the NPA led publicity epidemic. The NPA are inventing an SLBM where none exists. The entire NPA racket is based on inventing threats, and what better threats than ones that simply do not exist?
In the meanwhile enthusiastic Indian youngsters, seduced by the visions of an Indian SLBM ICBM etc... are mentally inducting 50000000 of them into their imaginary navy. Their egos bloating with each induction.
And tomorrow should the bubble burst, will these people admit they were wrong to believe NPA propaganda? I doubt it.
These fools will turn against the government for not giving them their illusions.
A positive appraisal of your nation should not rest on having imaginary armies fielding weapons of mass destruction.
It has never made sense to me as to how people can imagine that an India laden with a burden of thousands of nuclear warheads can achieve any measure of greatness. Despite the best efforts of our national leaders, the strain of Pakistani style idiocy continues to dog us.
To All,
I am increasingly of the opinion that the Indian press is no longer responsive to the pleas of the government. They are increasingly acting like they - the press - and not the people - own public opinion.
There is a great rush in the Indian Press to seek "Foreign Direct Investment" and as most of the FDI comes from one place, and there are so many Indian vying for it, this is promoting an atmosphere inside the newsrooms where overt hostility towards the government is allowed fester and in some cases deliberately grow.
There are people in the press who actually believe that they are true leaders of the nation and the manner in which they hold court with carefully selected studio audiences gives sight of much greater ambitions. Humility is not something that the news editors are known for.
News items are being chosen not for their relevance, but for their seduction value. In many cases an independent foreign policy is be promoted under the guise of statements from nameless sources and "high government officials".
Ofcourse those of you familiar with the history of counter insurgency in India will find this an all too familiar situation. We all... well at least some of us remember the liberated zones in Kashmir and the free press in Punjab and ... so it is here.
Look for the self-contradictions and shifts in the editorial bylines and the changing tone of the reports from a particular newspaper. These are the surest signs of a vanishingly small attention span that accompanies indulging in too much FDI fishing.
your posts has two parts
1)sagarika - disagree with you on this
2)Indian Press - Completely agree yon on this. But I disagree that our intelligence agencies are nincoomps. Only want to know what is holding them back. Are you talking of NDTV, when you talk of holding court? Something needs to be done to stop this madness
hi mavericks,
Look at the link
http://www.rediff.com/news/2007/apr/17nandi.htm
1)Does it give you a hint of who is involved in Nandigram?
2)Gen S.Padmanbhan has visualised this scenario in his book "Writing on the wall"
I hope we all are able to tide over this crisis
Anonymous,
People should not confuse capability with capacity, essentially a technology demonstrator is very different from a fielded arsenal. India can make technology demonstrators, fielding an arsenal is another story.
Technology demonstration is a vital part of articulating deterrence notions. This should not be confused with actually making a statement of deterrence posture.
There is a need to keep the two separate and that is why I am targetting NDTV's presenter for making stupid statements.
The Agni III test indicates that India has the capability to make longer range missiles with some reliability.
The NDTV moron said something to the effect that India's missiles put Diego Garcia and Beijing in range. This is an implicit statement about posture.
We have never said we were going to aim the Agni III at anyone and that NDTV fellow should not be seen to be putting statements in our mouths.
Actually all three of them CNN-IBN, NDTV and Times Now are making me heartily sick.
Maverick,
Sagarika Exists. I cannot give out details
I have started
www.frontierindia.net
: Indian Defence and Strategic News Service. Yes its commercial, unlike Frontier India Journal.
High Res Agni-3 pictures supplied by DRDO have been added in Frontier India Album.
Here is the oicture link
Agni Picture 1
Agni Picture 2
Hi Chacko,
The Sagarika does not exist and I can give you proof.
Go through the DRDO budget, there is no line item called Sagarika.
As far as the parliament is concerned, the government is not paying for it.
If the government is not paying for it, how can it exist?
What greater credible statement can there be than the RM himself answering a fellow parliamentarian on the floor of the House? Technically there is no higher truth than that.
The Sagarika is a figment of the NPA's overactive imagination, perhaps it is even a deliberate canard to make the young at heart in India jump around.
The NPA only want use the misplaced enthusiasm of the youth to invent reasons to attack the India-US nuclear deal.
It remains to be seen whether young Indians are stupid enough to fall into this well laid NPA trap.
Ok Maverick. There is no smoke without fire.
Hi Chacko,
There are two levels of information here.
There is the Mantriji's opinion on the floor of the house and then there is salacious sounding stuff from unnamed sources.
What has more credibility?
The whole idea behind psyops is to achieve confusion and obscure the truth so as to support the forumuation of specific policies.
One has to ask oneself what is more credible? rumour or the sworn statements of the elected minister?
or are we to chase after our R&D establishments with accusations of running secret programs?
I ask you, why seek out imaginary weapons? what sort of national pride derives from the idea that we have a big gun hidden our dhotis?
Is this a kind of jingoism that we should encourage? Isn't this the same kind of "my hatf is bigger than your agni" logic that the Pakistanis subscribe to?
Maverick,
The ministry denies the existence of ATV too. So there is no ATV?
Hi Chacko,
The RM has never denied the presence of an ATV project on the floor of the parliament but no RM has accepted it either. There was a lot of news coverage about an Indian Navy officer caught spying for the Americans who allegedly "leaked" details of an Indian nuclear submarine project, however it was never publicly clarified if the officer leaked details of an Indian program or of a Charlie class sub that was under lease from the Soviets.
If anything RM George Fernandes pointed out on the floor of the Lok Sabha that there were over a hundred references to the ATV project on the internet most of them on the disreputable website.
Ultimately I feel unless the Minister specificially clarifies whether there is or isn't an ATV project, I can't say with any confidence that there is one.
Have I heard something about the existance of such a project? yes, ever since I was a mere child, I have but that doesn't mean that any of what I have heard is true.
It could be that people who were telling me things were confused and perhaps they misinterpreted what they saw around them as being work on an ATV when in fact it was something completely unrelated.
Ultimately unless the minister says so I can't be absolutely certain any of what I have heard is fact.
So I give the existence of the ATV project the benifit of doubt.
1st of all, All I said was Sagarika exists. Even RM says "There is no missile project by name “Sagarika”".
Neither of US have said its a missile project.
But Sagarika exists. All that I said was, i cannot elaborate.
Hi Chacko,
I agree Sagarika exists. I should know in another life I was briefly (and unfortunately) tasked to provide security to her on one occasion.
Maverick, I never denied that sagarika is not a missile project.
Hi Chacko,
I on the other hand was definetely talking about Sagarika Soni.
Hi Mav,
Looks like you were wrong all along, regarding the Sagarika project.
Post a Comment
<< Home