Report: India to test new nuclear-capable rocket

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
India will test-fire a new missile capable of carrying nuclear warheads across much of Asia and the Middle East within the next few months, a news report quoting a top defense scientist said. A first test of the Agni III missile failed in July last year, but scientists have fixed a fault in its heat shield and it will be relaunched again "very soon," the head of India's state-run Defense Research and Development Organization, M. Natrajan, said, according to a Press Trust of India report Wednesday. "We have now come up with a flexible heat shield. All other parameters of the missile would remain the same," the report cited Natrajan as saying. Natrajan did not give an exact timeframe for the test. "It may be in May or June or even earlier," he said.