The achievement is a major one, with transformational implications for India's global standing.

That is especially the case as it follows India's successful breakthrough a few months ago into the handful of nations capable of developing their own nascent anti-ballistic missile technology with the successful testing of its Prithvee ABM low-level interceptor in November 2006.

However, an article published Tuesday in the Indian Business Standard puts the Agni-III success, genuine though it is, in a realistic context.

The IBS article acknowledged that the Agni-III flight "marked a crucial breakthrough in India's search for an effective nuclear deterrent. The 48-tonne (metric ton) missile, which can carry 1.5 tonnes of nuclear or conventional warheads over 3,000 kilometers (1,800 miles), provides the right platform to build missiles that will travel as far as 3,500-5,500 kilometers (2,100 miles to 3,300 miles)"

The article continued: "However, India is still way behind China in the nuclear weapons technology, including the warheads-delivery capability. China's intercontinental ballistic missile, Dong Feng-5, is known to have a range of over 13,000 kilometers (7,800 miles). Even the long-range ballistic missile Dong Feng-31, which China is reportedly preparing to induct in the army, is said to have a range of 8,000 kilometers (4,800 miles)."

The IBS article acknowledged that "the Agni-III technology validation seems to give India an edge, though only marginal, over Pakistan's Ghauri-III, which has a range of 2,500 kilometers(1,500 miles), and Haft-VI and Shaheen-II with a range of around 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles). "

But then the Indian Business Standard got to the nub of the problem. "The pace at which India is moving forward in developing missile technology seems rather leisurely when compared to the hectic testing being undertaken by both the neighboring countries," the article said. "Pakistan is understood to have conducted at least five tests -- three of ballistic missiles and two of long-range cruise missiles -- since the beginning of the current year"

The article concluded, "Considering the fast-paced nuclear build-up in its vicinity, what India really needs is a multi-layered missile defense system, supported by a network of early warning sensors, command posts and anti-missile land and sea-based missile detection, interceptor and destruction system."

But perhaps the most revealing detail discussed in the piece was that "most of the components (for the Agni-III) were made by (Indian) private industry though some 20 laboratories of the Defense Research and Development Organization."

For as we have noted over the past year in previous BMD Focus columns, the DRDO has a very uneven record in bringing India's new military technologies to successful completion as mature, reliable and widely deployed operational systems.

After the earlier Agni-III test failure in July 2006, Adm. L. Ramdas, a former chief of staff of the Indian Navy, told Inter Press Service, "The DRDO isn't the world's most reliable weapons R and D agency. The Indian armed services' experience with DRDO-made armaments has not been a happy one. Their reliability is often extremely poor. We often used to joke that one had to pray they would somehow work in the battlefield."

Despite an annual budget of $670 million, comparable to that of India's massive Department of Atomic Energy, "The DRDO has delivered very little," analyst Praful Bidwai wrote for IPS in the Asia Times.

He also quoted Anil Chowdhary of the Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace as saying, "None of the three major projects assigned to the DRDO has been completed on time or without huge cost-overruns."

The organization's project to build India's first home-produced main battle tank began more than 30 years ago in 1974. Yet the tank has still failed to meet service requirement tests and is reportedly too heavy and undependable to be used in combat operations, Bidwai wrote.

The equally venerable DRDO project to build India's first home-manufactured nuclear submarine is still not completed, despite expenditures on it of nearly $1 billion, Bidwai wrote. And a Light Combat Aircraft, or LCA project, launched in 1983 is also mired because the DRDO has failed to develop the right engine for it, he wrote.

Commenting on Bidwai's analysis in a July 17 BMD Focus column, we noted, "Even if the DRDO can manage a successful test launch of the Agni III ICBM in the next few months, Bidwai's analysis suggests that the structural problems of India's military-industrial sector are widespread and deep-rooted and unlikely to be satisfactorily resolved soon."

Since then, the pure research and development picture has clearly brightened with the Prithvee and now the Agni-III test successes. But the DRDO still faces the very different challenge of producing reliable numbers of quality-control tested systems of these weapons for operational deployment.

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