A second test firing of a cannisterized Agni-5 IRBM, which was announced by DRDO early Feb without the date being revealed, was scheduled from Balasore on the Odisha coast today. It didn’t take place. Instead, a 700km A-1 MRBM was launched, perhaps, as consolation. The talk is the instructions for this change came from PMO which was concerned US President Barack Obama would have been upset by the symbolically “provocative” action of firing a long range missile in the run-up to the nuclear security summit in Washington, thereby imperiling the “success” of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s trip, March 31-April 1.
The problem though is DRDO’s launch schedule cannot so casually be trifled with because there’s high level of preparations that are involved. As mentioned in a previous blog the window for the test firings is for this week. It remains to be seen if the A-5 was merely postponed or taken off the table altogether and should the cannisterized A-5 launch not happen in the next few days, then those in the know claim it’d be a good indication of the BJP govt bending to US’ will much as its predecessor Congress Party regime had done during its tenure, and the desire to please the US Govt is uppermost in its mind rather than the national interest.
Security Wise 
Respected Sir,
This turn of events is very worrying, to say the least.
If an overtly nationalistic BJP government won’t exercise India’s sovereign right to conduct a missile test,in deference to American sensibilities, then where is the hope from any other political party?
Our policy towards the USA should be giving them what they want (but extracting more from them in terms of investments,technologies etc)as long as they accomadate our core national interest, on which there would be no compromise under any conditions whatsoever. But the moot point is does GOI have a short list of such clearly defined core national interests?or even this critical aspect of national planning is also a victim of ad hocism that afflicts vast swathes of GOI?
Maybe you Sir, could shed some light on this?
Read his book.
the launch can be done afterwards also
this is a smart step to avoid unnecessary attention
Bharat Sir,
Are you sure then that it was the K-4 and not K-15 that was tested on March 7 ? If the K-4 test is OK (albeit to a shorter range of ca. 700 km), why would the A-5 test be “offensive” ? Modi is losing credibility by following the same old failed policies.
@ashi: Not a smart step. Next, you can argue that the launch can be postponed after April since Ashton Carter (U.S Defence Sec.) is visiting. Where does this line of thinking end ? At this rate, each test firing will be postponed by a year or so and final induction will be years late.