NEW DELHI, Dec 13: India tested its surface-to-air Akash missile at an eastern coastal testing range on Thursday, defence officials said. The missile blasted off from the Chandipur-on-Sea testing site, 200 km northeast of Orissa state capital Bhubaneswar and hit a flying target successfully, the defence ministry confirmed.

The locally developed missile was last tested in January.

The 700-kg Akash, meaning ‘sky’ in Hindi, can track 100 targets simultaneously with on-board radar and move at 600 metres a second while delivering a 55-kilogramme warhead across 27 km in 50 seconds.

The test came a day after India announced plans to increase its nuclear prowess with a ballistic missile capable of hitting targets up to 6,000 kilometres (3,800 miles) away.

New Delhi also announced two tests this month of Indian manufactured interceptor missiles, saying they performed better than Patriot air-defence batteries manufactured by the US defence group, Raytheon.

India has built a range of ballistic and cruise missiles as a deterrent to the arsenal of China with which it has an unresolved border dispute.

Experts say the missile development project is also to counter the acquisition of newer missiles by Pakistan which carried out tit-for-tat nuclear weapons tests after India conducted a series of atomic detonations in 1998.

—AFP