Mission Shakti: India's anti-satellite test sends a stark message to China

Foreign ministry said that India wasn't engaging in an arms race, but asserted that "with this test, India joins an exclusive group of space-faring nations consisting of USA, Russia and China

One month after an ageing Indian Air Force jet was shot down in a dogfight with neighboring Pakistan, New Delhi has demneighbouring new weapons capability aimed at another, more powerful geopolitical rival: China.

On Wednesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi used a national address to announce India had “established itself as a space power” by sending an indigenously designed ballistic-missile interceptor up 300 kilometers (190 miles) to destroy a satellite orbiting the Earth. The move -- with political overtones just weeks ahead of a national election -- sends a stark message to India’s nuclear-armed rivals, China and Pakistan, and changes Asia’s