New Delhi: India's missile and nuclear weapons programs have evolved as elements of its strategic response to more than 60 years of wars and skirmishes it has fought with Pakistan and China.
Deep tensions and mistrust in the sub-continent continue unabated to the present.
India's debacle on the borders at the hands of China in the 1962 war, probably more than any other event, galvanized its leadership to build indigenous missile and nuclear weapons capabilities as a credible deterrent against attack by China, and to attain military superiority over Pakistan.
The programme, that was envisioned under the leadership of Indira Gandhi in the 1970s and was started in the early 1980s, has been further consolidated with an exponentially expanded plan in the latter years.
Let's have a look where India today stands in missile systems:
