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External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj has set
the stage for an “outcome-driven” visit to China by Prime Minister Narendra
Modi, softening the ground for a substantive boundary dialogue, and
accelerating the pace for Chinese investments to India. Exact dates of the
Prime Ministerial visit have not been fixed, but Mr. Modi will arrive in China
before May 26, the date when the government completes one year in office. India
has unveiled an ambitious agenda to elevate its ties with China, with External
Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj announcing a six-point proposal to jointly realise
with Beijing, the dream of an “Asian Century.” In
her first engagement of the morning in the Chinese capital, she said at the
inaugural of the Second India-China Media Forum that the six-point template
could enrich the civilizations of India and China in the modern era.
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The configuration of the canister version of
ICBM, Agni-V, which was successfully test-fired from Wheeler Island for a range of
more than 5,000 km, has been “frozen” and there was no issue as far as
validation and verification of India’s most potent strategic missile was
concerned. With the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO)
successfully conducting three Agni-V missions in a row, including the latest
canister-based flight test, only one more trial would be conducted jointly with
the user before it gets inducted into armed forces by year-end. According
to a top missile technologist who is closely associated with Agni-V project,
the canister-based trial with the user would be conducted in four to five
months. Mentioning the advantages of canister version in terms of
operational flexibility to the user, he said one could just park it and launch.
Besides providing reduced reaction time, it would also help in camouflaging.
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