According to Dr. A .Sivathanu Pillai, Honorary Distinguished Professor at Indian Space Research Organisation and Honorary Professor at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi, India will be one of the three leaders in missile technology in a decade from now.

Speaking to Covai Post, he shared his belief that in missile technology China and the U.S. would be leaders followed by India ten years from now.

“This is not a race to create missiles in the first place. Every country is carrying out its own research and development in this field. India too is emerging as one of the key players in creating missiles and adopting technology. However, unlike other countries that started working in this area in the 50’s, India started from scratch its R&D in missile technology in the 60’s. Yet, I am confident that in 10 years from now India will be one of the top three nations producing missiles,” Dr. Pillai said.

According to him one of the reasons for India to be successful in this area was the involvement of youth in the missile programme.

“Youth these days are very intelligent. They have various sources that they can refer to and stay updated.”

Citing the example of how information is available to the youth at their finger tips even while they are on the go, Dr. Pillai added that the Intelligent Quotient of the average Indian youth has increased tremendously and this was a positive sign that India was moving from one level of development to another using the power of the youth.

Moving the focus back to missile technology, we asked Dr. Pillai what can one expect after BrahMos. In a jiffy came the answer. “BrahMos is a supersonic cruise missile. We are currently working towards creating a hypersonic missile that will be more powerful than its predecessor BrahMos.”

The super high speed of this hypersonic missile would make it almost impossible for the enemy to trace it (the missile).

He added that India’s dependency on technology was high as it continued to use satellite technology in areas like communication, navigation, remote sensing and for weather updates.

Commenting on the current education system, he said that education needed to be focussed on research. “In the West great emphasis is given to research. However, in India, only 30 per cent of education is dedicated towards research. We need to set our focus on research in India,” he said.