Indian Navy has to take call on inducting Brahmos' submarine version

Brahmos Aerospace, an Indo-Russia joint venture and manufacturer of the cruise missile, is awaiting decision from the Indian Navy, to induct its submarine version, a top official said on Friday.

Brahmos has successfully test fired the underwater version in March last and "Indian Navy has to take a decision in this regard (induction)," A Shivathanu Pillai, Brahmos CEO, told reporters here.

Shivathanu Pillai, who was here to address the heads of various department and students of Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, said the company recently test-fired the missile on Salvo mode.

 

After the successful test firing, eight cruise missiles could be fired on Salvo mode in the future, at different targets, he said.

Boosting Navy's firepower, the 290km-range BrahMos supersonic cruise missile was successfully fired from a naval warship INS Trikand in salvo mode in the Arabian Sea recently.

On export of the cruise missiles, he said so far no decision has been taken for exports, since the requirement in Indian defence was very huge.

DRDO was continuously working to keep Indian soldiers healthy and energetic and trying to find food from ordinary things available in the nature.

It had developed an anti-oxidant juice from sea buck thorn, which were being marketed across the country, he said.

To promote research in biotechnology and nano-technology, DRDO has already set up a Centre for Life Sciences in Bharathiar University here and provided Rs 18 crore for the phase one project.

Another Rs seven crore was recently sanctioned for the phase-two out of Rs 22 crore, and the University will work with Agricultural University in the field of bio and nano technology, for benefit of farmers, he added.

In his address to students, Pillai said with shortage of water in India, researchers, scientists and farmers have to depend totally on technology, to get higher yield and production, to achieve the food security.

Dwelling on expert systems for agriculture, like space technology, solar and nuclear technologies, he said India has become food surplus now, by producing 262.7 million tonnes of foodgrains at the end of green revolution and second green revolution has set a target of 400 million tonnes by 2020.