Manmohan to Jayalalithaa: Mullaperiyar issue should be resolved through dialogue

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Thursday wrote to Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa saying nothing should be said or done to create “undue alarm” and hoped Mullaperiyar Dam issue would be sorted out amicably through dialogue.Replying to letters written by Ms. Jayalalithaa, Dr. Singh said he had asked the Water Resources Ministry to arrange an early meeting between officials of Tamil Nadu and Kerala to “sort out outstanding issues and allay genuine concerns”.

He sought Ms. Jayalalithaa’s cooperation on the issue.

Strategic Forces Command test fires Agni

The Strategic Forces Command (SFC) of the Army successfully fired an Agni-I missile from the Wheeler Island, off Odisha on Thursday) to test the Command’s readiness to launch ballistic missiles carrying nuclear warheads. The Agni-I rose from a road-mobile launcher, a specially designed truck, at 9.30 a.m. and covered its targeted range in 600 seconds of flight. The missile accurately reached its targeted area in the Bay of Bengal.

The Agni-I, indigenously developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), is already in the Army’s arsenal.This was the fifth success in a row when a series of missiles were launched from September from the Wheeler Island. The flights included Shourya, Prithvi-II and Agni-II missiles in the last week of September and Agni-IV on November 15. The DRDO developed all these missiles.