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.

A pair of nuclear-powered Russian attack submarines has been patrolling off the eastern seaboard of the United States in recent days, a rare mission that has raised concerns inside the Pentagon and intelligence agencies about a more assertive stance by the Russian military.

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.

An accident aboard a Russian nuclear attack submarine that killed at least 20 and injured 22 late Saturday, is the latest in a series of undersea tragedies that have struck the Russian Navy as it struggles to regain Soviet-era capacities.

The U.S. Defense Department is leaving open the possibility of developing a conventional long-range missile for deployment on submarines, despite stern congressional warnings against fielding anything that might be mistaken for a nuclear weapon during launch.

A commercial satellite image appears to have captured China's new nuclear ballistic missile submarine. The new class, known as the Jin-class or Type 094, is expected to replace the unsuccessful Xia-class (Type 092) of a single boat built in the early 1980s.

India has begun to develop a nuclear-powered, nuclear-armed submarine to give the nation a sea-based platform for its strategic nuclear deterrent, according to a former head of the Indian navy.

Admiral William J. Fallon,
the chief of U.S. forces in the Pacific, urged closer military ties with China after an uncomfortably close encounter between U.S. warships and a Chinese submarine in the Pacific last month.

A new Pentagon report to Congress carries a strong warning that China's rapidly expanding and improving submarine fleet poses a mounting military threat to the United States.

North Korea appears closer to deploying a new mobile ballistic missile that is a worrisome increase in that nation's military capacity, but American government officials stress that the weapon can not reach the continental United States.