Trajectory of fire: Agni V

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The declared range is political. The demonstrated capability is not. Agni V truly epitomises the maturing of India's missile prowess and is a harbinger of many more technological successes to come. Far from being a "me too" effort to the P-5s (minus the UK) payload delivery systems, the solid-fuelled Agni V is a contemporaneous system exhibiting the state-of-the-art in ballistic missile developments. If production-ised quickly, it would give India the "omni deterrence" that one often hears in DRDOspeak. Well, even if we look at the missile's stipulated range of "more than 5000 km", one finds that India now has the ability to hold all of China at risk from, say, the eastern states of India. But again, there is much more to this missile than its range capability. For one, the Agni V (like the Agni IV launched late last year) uses an extremely potent guidance package that utilises....

Is a new kind of arms race brewing?

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It was back in 2008 when I came across an old 'Air & Space Power Journal' paper titled 'Russian Views on Information Based Warfare' (1996) which had a reference to a retired Russian General who characterized sixth­generation, or "fundamentally new types of weapons," to include geophysical, electromagnetic or radio frequency, infrasonic, genetic, ethnic, psychotronic, beam, laser, and nonlethal weapons. Now while radio frequency weapons, laser, particle beam and non-lethal weapons certainly exist (and are beginning to approach a stage where they may see wide deployment) it is the allusion here to geophysical and psychotronic weapons that falls more than the others in the realm of speculation. I don't say the same for 'infrasonic' because far more overt research has been conducted in that area and infrasonic frequencies are even believed to be associated with ghostly apparitions. And genetic or ethically targeted Bioweapons may have been explored under the Soviet....

Propfan engine for DRDO's Nirbhay cruise missile?

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It is often remarked that the only thing missing in India's missile portfolio is a subsonic cruise missile akin to the BGM-109G Tomahawk ground launched cruise missile (GLCM) deployed by the Americans in the eighties. Fortunately, 2012 seems to be the year when this is set to change with several reports of DRDO's Nirbhay being shortly unveiled. One report is particularly noteworthy - TS Subramanian's 'Nirbhay likely to be testfired in April' in this Wednesday's The Hindu. The story talks about the Nirbhay being a two-stage missile with the second stage powered by a turboprop engine. While the first part is simple enough - the two stages are obviously a reference to the solid booster (which is the 'first stage') used by the Nirbhay when it is launched from the ground; it is the second 'salient feature' that bothered me, i.e the part about the Nirbhay being powered by....

From Russia without love

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The recent cancellation of two scheduled bilateral exercises by the Russian side has brought to light the existence of some strains in the otherwise robust Indo-Russian defence partnership. An assertive Indian officialdom aggravated by indifferent Russian sales support is causing the latter to resort to short term pressure signaling. Nevertheless, these hiccups are actually reflective of the fact that India now has many suitors and is expanding its geopolitical space, something that Russia may ultimately have to come to terms with. The current Indo-Russian defence relationship is executed under the aegis of the Indo-Russian Intergovernmental Commission on Military Technical Cooperation (IRIGC-MTC) which meets on an annual basis. Institutionalized ties between the two countries provide for a deep partnership which includes besides co-development and joint marketing of weapons, regular military exercises and exchanges on an annual basis. It was for one of these annual exercises christened "INDRA",that a flock of....

'Suit Up!', said Barney Stinson...

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...and the environmentalists flinched. The other day I came across an elaborate advertisement for carbon friendly suits, and it got me investigating. The green designing industry that is emerging worldwide looks to keep customers both nattily dressed as well as environmentally scrupulous - for a hefty fee, of course. Apparently, there is now hope for those who want to wear a suit a lot less guiltily, or is there? This "eco clothes" industry is growing at a fast pace to turn out smart apparel, literally tailor-made for environmental sustainability; but unfortunately, this business is also symptomatic of the inherent pitfalls of the fight against global warming. Let us see how. Green designers look to make their products "carbon neutral" by offsetting the carbon emissions during the manufacture of their products, through planting trees, and investment in renewable energy and energy efficiency projects. However, these "offsetting" attempts....