India has begun development of lasers and an exo-atmospheric kill vehicle that could be combined to produce a weapon to destroy enemy satellites in orbit, according to the director-general of India's defense research organization.

India launched its first nuclear-powered submarine in a ceremony in southern port city of Vishakhapatnam on Sunday, becoming one of just six nations in the world to have successfully built one.

For years, India has focused its efforts in space on practical applications -- using satellites to collect information on natural disasters, for instance. But India is now moving beyond that traditional focus and has planned its first manned space mission in 2015. The ascendancy of India's space program highlights the country's rising ambitions on the world stage, as it grows economically and asserts itself in matters of diplomacy.

A little more than a year after India and the United States signed a historic civilian agreement lifting a 30-year ban on nuclear trade, some former top nuclear scientists here are arguing that India needs to conduct another weapons test.

India must not join the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, as it might need to conduct further nuclear-weapon blasts since the first test was low-yield, according to a high-level scientist.

India's Chandrayaan-1 lunar orbiter mission, which launched last October, ended 14 months prematurely Saturday after an abrupt malfunction, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said in a statement.

India joins the exclusive club of US, Russia, China, France and UK, with the launch of its first nuclear submarine as part of their endeavour to build a 'credible nuclear weapon triad' comparable to the superpowers.

Michio Kaku surveys the growing number nations planning competing missions to the moon (including Japan, China, India, and the U.S.) and argues that the growing lunar competition should motivate a re-examination of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty "before national rivalries and tensions heat up as we approach 2020."

While the United States has a clear interest in alternative energy, India’s needs are arguably even greater. Taylor Dinerman argues that the two countries should work together to develop space-based solar power solutions that can benefit them both.

U.S. and allied officials and experts who have tracked developments in South Asia have grown increasingly worried over the rapid growth of the region's more mature nuclear programs, in part because of the risk that weapons could fall into the hands of terrorists.