Agni-5: What is the missile launched by India and will it lead to regional arms race?
India says it has successfully conducted its first test flight of a homegrown long-range ballistic missile capabale of delivering multiple warheads to different targets, a significant development for the country’s weapons programme.
Prime minister Narendra Modi took to X – formerly Twitter – to congratulate the scientists behind the Agni-5 missile, which derives its name from the Sanskrit language word for “fire” and is equipped with Multiple Independently Targetable Re-entry Vehicles (Mirv) technology.
It puts India among a relatively small club of countries including the US, Russia, China, France and the UK that are known to have Mirv-equipped missiles.
The missile’s range of over 5000km and its general utility as a potential “first use” in the region and lead to increased instability over time”, one analyst told .
