Missile man signs off on high

The head of the defence research establishment, Avinash Chander, who was told to demit office earlier this month, today signed off after a test-launch of his pet Agni-V missile that was reported to be successful.

Chander, who was in Wheeler Island off the Odisha coast when the missile was launched shortly after eight this morning, said the weapon was now in "deliverable configuration".

This was the third test-firing of the missile that has a range of about 5000km and can deliver a nuclear warhead weighing 1.1 tonnes. The range of the missile means that it can be fired from, say, Kanyakumari, to hit targets north of India.

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