Govt refuses to divulge information on Kali 5000 project

The government today refused to share information with the Parliament about Kali 5,000 project citing it to be a matter of national security.
"The desired information is sensitive in nature and its disclosure is not in the interest of national security," Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar said in a written reply to Lok Sabha.
The question asked was whether there is any proposal to induct Kali 5000 in the armed forces.
According to publicly available information, Kali (Kilo Ampere Linear Injector) is a linear electron accelerator being developed in India, by Defence Research Development Organisation (DRDO) and Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC).

It is designed to work in such a way that if a missile is launched in India's direction, it will quickly emit powerful pulses of Relativistic Electrons Beams (REB).
Unlike laser beams, it does not create a hole in the target but damages the on-board electronic systems.
Kali project was first initiated by the then BARC Director Dr R Chidambaram in 1985 and work on the project began in 1989.
The government also refused to share much information on safety steps being taken by India for protection of space assets.