Alarm bells for China, Pakistan; India eyes S-400 Triumf air defence missile systems

Pic courtesy: ITAR-TASS

New Delhi: In what would certainly set alarm bells ringing in China and Pakistan, India is planning to buy Russian S-400 Triumf air defence missile systems, reports said on Thursday.

The Indian administration is expected to soon take up the proposal with Russian authorities.

Notably, Prime Minister Narendra Mod is scheduled to visit Russia in December, where he is expected to take up the matter with President Vladimir Putin. Also, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar is expected to visit India's neighbour in the near future.

The S-400 is a new generation anti-aircraft system, which can be equipped with very long-range missiles (up to 400km), long-range (250km) and medium-range (120km).

The S-400 Triumf is capable of countering all air attack weapons, including tactical and strategic aircraft, ballistic missiles and hypersonic targets such as the US F-35 fighter jet.

India is likely to purchase 10-12 S-400s.

The S-400 can engage up to 36 targets simultaneously with as many as 72 missiles at altitudes of five meters to 30 km.

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Meanwhile, a report recently published by Credit Suisse on globalisation has ranked the Indian armed forces as the fifth strongest military in the world.

While India was ranked fifth, United States of America held the number one position followed by Russia, China and Japan.

According to Credit Suisse report on the trend of globalisation, the US scored 0.94. It was followed by Russia (0.8), China (0.79), Japan (0.72), India (0.69), France (0.61), South Korea (0.52), Italy (0.52), Britain (0.5) and Turkey (0.47).

Importantly, Pakistan was ranked No 11 with a score of 0.41.