BY : FORBES

India has tested an air defense missile at a site close to its tense border with Pakistan where it conducted a string of nuclear detonations in 1998, officials said Wednesday.

Military scientists tested the medium-range surface-to-air missile Akash, or Sky, from Pokhran, some 200 kilometers (120 miles) from Pakistan's borders last week but gave details of the flight only on Wednesday.

The flight was carried out in near-secrecy from Pokhran, where nine years ago India tested a string of nuclear weapons including a thermo-nuclear device and sparked global sanctions against New Delhi.

'The test was a success and we hope Akash will be inducted very soon into the army,' Samir Sinha, spokesman of India's Defense Research and Development Organization, told Agence France-Presse in Jodhpur in Rajasthan state.

First tested in 1993, Akash can carry a 55-kilogram (121-pound) warhead and has a range of 25 kilometers (15.5 miles).