The Agni-V was launched from a site off India’s east coast and took about 20 minutes to hit its target somewhere near Indonesia in the Indian Ocean.

The missile has a range of more than 5,000km (3,100 miles), potentially bringing targets in China within range.

India said the launch was “flawless” and the missile had reached its target. More→

India has formally commissioned a nuclear-powered submarine into its navy, rejoining the elite club of nations with such a weapon. The $1bn (£630m) Russian-built vessel is being leased by the Indian navy for the next 10 years. It was handed over to India in eastern Russia in January. India previously operated a Soviet nuclear submarine until 1991. It now rejoins China, Russia, the US, the UK and France as an operator of nuclear submarines.India is also developing its own nuclear-powered submarine which is expected to be ready by the end of this year. More→

For all the myriad challenges facing Israel over the past decade it is the potential threat from a nuclear-armed Iran that has preoccupied the country’s military planners.

It is this that in large part has guided the development of the Israeli Air Force (IAF) over recent years.

The IAF has purchased 125 advanced F-15I and F-16I warplanes, equipped with Israeli avionics and additional fuel tanks – tailor-made for long-range strike missions.

In addition, Israel has bought specialised bunker-busting munitions; developed large, long-endurance, unmanned aircraft; and much of its training has focused on long-range missions.

Israel has a track-record of pre-emptive strikes against nuclear targets in the region. More→

A Hindu trust in India’s eastern state of Bihar has begun building a replica of Cambodia’s Angkor Wat temple. A foundation-laying ceremony for the $20m (£12.5m) project has been held 25km (16 miles) from Bihar’s capital Patna, on the banks of the Ganges. The builders say the result will be the world’s largest Hindu temple. More→

Yoga has given India a stunning international shimmer.  The ethos, values and practices of a long ago past, of a far away country, seem to have been directly, successfully embedded in the minds and bodies of millions in a manner in which even IT and Bollywood—put together—haven’t, can’t. There isn’t a city without its local yoga guru dispensing his/her wisdom. Cities like Mysore and Poona resemble mini Olympics Games villages every day of the year. More→

For India’s founders, political freedom was their great prize. Yet decades on, what that freedom has delivered measures up poorly for many. For India’s business elites eager to compete with China, for the middle classes fed up with corruption, for radical intellectuals, for desperate citizens who have taken up arms against the state – democracy in India is a story of unravelling illusions.Democratic politics itself has come to be seen as impeding the decisive action needed to expand economic possibilities.

In a society of swiftly inflating expectations, where old deference crumbles before youthful impatience, frustration with democracy is perhaps not surprising.

The citizenry’s ire expresses perhaps instinctively something that India’s government, caught in inertial routines, is in danger of missing. Societies are at their most vulnerable when things are improving – not when they are stagnant. More→

India will hold its first Grand Prix this weekend – a glitzy coming-out party for an emerging economic juggernaut that is lost on villagers like Meera, standing by a fetid pond near the brand new Formula One race track with a child covered in warts. More→

Four years, six months and five days after work began on it, the first official train of Namma Metro rolls out, to the coconut shells of the priests, the wave of the politicians, and the throng of passengers and the press, through crowded M.G. Road and Ulsoor, in Bangalore on Thursday, 20 October 2011.

Apparently, it took 96,900 tonnes of cement; 33,400 tonnes of structural steel; 1,500 tonnes of hi-tension wire; 215,000 metres of electrical cables; 3000 workers and 300 workers for just the first 6.7 kms of the 108.66 route, spread over six stations, a distance that will be traversed in 14 minutes. More→

Rarely does the U.S. government want anyone more than it wanted Viktor Bout, known as the “Merchant of Death.” U.S. government officials say Bout became the world’s most notorious arms dealer by fueling civil wars around the world. Courted by drug lords and dictators, the U.S. saw him as a threat because of his ability to arm terrorists targeting the United States.

A former Russian military officer, Bout has been protected by powerful friends, and long considered simply untouchable by law enforcement. But three years ago the DEA devised a bold undercover operation to capture him. More→

India desperately needs a new political leader and it looks as if there is a chance it might get the person who many people fear and despise. He is Narendra Modi (elow), chief minister of Gujarat and the most charismatic politician in the Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the country’s main parliamentary opposition. Article by: John Elliot More→