The Indian Navy has commissioned into service the first-ever indigenously built nuclear armed submarine — INS Arihant in August.
With this India has gained the title of a ‘nuclear triad’ power, after the US, the UK, Russia, China and France.
A ‘nuclear triad’ power is a country that has the capability to launch nuclear weapons from land, air and sea.
INS Arihant has gone through severe sea trials and was finally inducted in the Navy in August and has been operational since then.
INS Arihant, which means ‘slayer of enemies’, is a 6,000-tonne SSBN (ship submersible ballistic, nuclear submarine), that can carry ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads.
The Arihant project, earlier known as the advanced technology vessel (ATV), has been under development since 1998. It was finally launched at the headquarters of India’s Eastern Naval Command, Visakhapatnam, on July 2009 by former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, and was built at an approximate cost of $3 billion.
The submarine was jointly developed by the Indian Navy, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) and Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO).
