Mamata criticises Modi’s announcement of anti-missile test [ Tritiyo Matra News ]

Mamata criticises Modi’s announcement of anti-missile test

Global March 28, 2019

An Indian opposition leader, Mamata Banerjee, said she was lodging a complaint against prime minister Narendra Modi over his announcement of an anti-satellite test on Wednesday, saying he had done it to ‘reap political benefits’ before an election.
In a television address to the nation, Modi said an Indian missile had shot down an Indian satellite in space, becoming only the fourth country after the United States, Russia and China to have that capability.
‘Our scientists shot down a live satellite 300 kilometres away in space, in low-earth orbit,’ Modi said in a television broadcast.
‘India has made an unprecedented achievement today,’ he added, speaking in Hindi. ‘India registered its name as a space power.’
‘Today’s announcement is yet another limitless drama and publicity mongering by Modi desperately trying to reap political benefits at the time of election,’ Banerjee, the chief minister of West Bengal state and a potential prime ministerial candidate, said on Twitter.
She said it was a gross violation of an electoral code of conduct.
‘We are lodging a complaint with the Election Commission.’
An Election Commission spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a text message seeking comment. India’s staggered general election begins on April 11.
Anti-satellite weapons permit attacks on enemy satellites, blinding them or disrupting communications, as well as providing a technology base to intercept ballistic missiles.
Such capabilities have raised fears of the weaponisation of space and setting off a race between rivals.
After the news, China’s foreign ministry said it hoped all countries ‘can earnestly protect lasting peace and tranquillity in space’. The United States and Russia both declined to make any immediate comment.
India’s neighbour and arch-rival Pakistan said space is the ‘common heritage of mankind and every nation has the responsibility to avoid actions which can lead to the militarisation of this arena.’
Tension flared last month between the nuclear-armed foes after a militant attack in the disputed region of Kashmir. Separately, Pakistan announced on Wednesday it had studied an Indian government report into the Kashmir incident and summoned India’s High Commissioner to Islamabad to share the conclusions, adding that it was seeking further information and was acting in the interest of regional peace and security.
India has had a space programme for years, making earth imaging satellites and launch capabilities as a cheaper alternative to Western programmes. It sent a low-cost probe to Mars in 2014 and plans its first manned space mission by 2022.
The latest test, conducted from an island off its east coast, was aimed at protecting India’s assets in space against foreign attacks, the government said.
A ballistic missile defence interceptor produced by the government’s Defence Research and Development Organisation was used to shoot down the satellite, the foreign ministry said.
‘The capability achieved...provides credible deterrence against threats to our growing space-based assets from long-range missiles, and proliferation in the types and numbers of missiles,’ it said in a statement.
The three-minute test in the lower atmosphere ensured there was no debris in space and the remnants would ‘decay and fall back on to the earth within weeks’, the ministry added.
But Jeffrey Lewis of the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey said the risk of debris hitting other objects in space remained.
Modi’s Hindu nationalist-led government has taken a strong position on national security, launching air strikes last month on a suspected militant camp in Pakistan that spurred retaliatory raids.
Although he faces criticism for failing to deliver on high economic growth and create jobs, a hawkish position on security should help Modi at the ballot box, pollsters say.
The leader of the main opposition Congress party, Rahul Gandhi, congratulated defence scientists but took a dig at Modi for the announcement on a day that commemorates theatricals.
‘I would also like to wish the prime minister a very happy World Theatre Day,’ Gandhi said. School children held flags in the western Indian city of Ahmedabad celebrating the test.
A concern for India is that China could help its old ally Pakistan neutralise any advantage.
‘Pakistan and China have a very deep strategic kind of partnership. So some kind of sharing of capabilities can’t be ignored,’ Uday Bhaskar, director of the Society for Policy Studies, another Delhi think-tank, said.