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Govt nod for Agni-II

The government has approved the development of the second phase of the Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile Agni, Defence Minister George Fernandes announced today.

The defence minister told the parliamentary consultative committee of the defence ministry that Agni-II would use state-of-the-art technologies developed indigenously.

The approval of the second phase of Agni follows the successful completion of the first phase of the missile demonstrating re-entry technology.

Fernandes informed the meeting that efforts were on to ensure that there were no adverse effects of the sanctions on India's indigenous missile development programme, which was in a very advanced stage of development.

The meeting, which discussed the Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme of the Defence Research and Development Organisation, was attended among others by Scientific Adviser to Defence Minister A P J Abdul Kalam, Defence Secretary Ajit Kumar and Defence Production and Supplies Secretary T S Vijayaraghavan.

The defence minister told the meeting that the Prithvi missile had been inducted into the army and the development work for the air force version had also been completed.

UNI

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