'India on par with others in electronic warfare'

Bhubaneswar, May 2 (IANS) India is on par with other countries in electronic warfare, senior scientist Saktipada Dash, who took over as director of a prestigious defence electronics research laboratory, said Wednesday.

Dash was deeply involved in path-breaking research in missile projects like Prithvi, Agni and BrahMos.

'We are almost on par with other countries in electric warfare,' said Dash who took charge as director of the prestigious Defence Electronics Research Laboratory (DLRL) at Hyderabad Tuesday.

DLRL, a lab of country's Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has been designing and developing electronic warfare systems covering radar and communication frequency bands for the Indian army, navy and air force for over four decades.

'Communication technology and radar technology is changing very fast. Everybody is updating their systems. We will have to find out what they are doing and counter that', he told IANS in a telephone interview, explaining the challanges ahead.

Dash was credited with hundreds of flights tests and evaluation of missiles and weapon systems during his previous assignment of over five years as director of the Integrated Test Range (ITR) at Chandipur in Odisha.

He said to make its systems effective efforts are always on to upgrade country's electronic warfare systems. Some systems have already been developed and are being used by army, navy and air force.

'Some more are under progress', he said, adding that those cannot be divulged because they are highly classified.

Born in the Odisha's Cuttack district 1955, Dash stood first in the state's higher secondary board. He did his B.Tech in electronics and communications from the Indian Institute of Technology-Kharagpur in 1977.

He was deeply involved in the design and development of electronics systems for the Trishul, Nag, Akash, Astra, BrahMos, Prithvi and Agni missile programmes.

He has received Prime Minister's DRDO Award for path breaking research and performance excellence four times.