i. India is finally close to operationalising its long-awaited nuclear weapons triad — the capability to launch nukes from land, air and sea.
ii. INS Arihant’s 750km and 3,500km missiles may be somewhat dwarfed by SLBMs with ranges of well over 5,000km with the US, Russia and China, but the completion of the nuclear-triad is critical for a country like India, which has a clearly declared policy of “no first-use” of nuclear weapons.
iii. INS Arihant has undergone a whole host of surface and “dived” sorties during its trials to prove its sea-worthiness. But the full weapons integration with the “K” (named after former president APJ Abdul Kalam) series of SLBMs will take some more time. While the K-15SLBM has a 750-km range, the K-4 can go up to 3,500-km.