Editor’s note: Vivek Raghuvanshi, a journalist and freelancer to Defense News for more than three decades, was jailed in May 2023 by India’s Central Bureau of Investigation on charges of espionage. The Indian government has released minimal information on his arrest. Sightline Media Group, which owns Defense News, has not seen any evidence to substantiate these charges and repudiates attacks on press freedom.
NEW DELHI — India has successfully conducted its first test flight of a domestically developed missile that can carry multiple warheads, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said Monday.
The missile is equipped with multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles, Modi said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.
India has been developing medium- and long-range missile systems since the 1990s amid strategic competition with China.
In 2021, India successfully tested Agni-V, a nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missile with a range of 5,000 kilometers (3,107 miles) that is believed to be capable of targeting nearly all of China. Agni missiles are long-range surface-to-surface ballistic missiles.
India is also able to strike anywhere in neighboring Pakistan, its archrival with which it has fought three wars since they gained independence from British colonialists in 1947.
