INDIA wants to manufacture BrahMos missiles not to attack any country but to ensure that no other country dares to cast an evil eye on it, the country’s defence minister Rajnath Singh on Sunday (26) said while emphasising on the need for maintaining nuclear deterrents.
“The BrahMos missile and other weapons and defence equipment we are manufacturing are not to attack any other country. It has never been the character of India to attack any other country or grab even an inch of land of any country,” he said.
“We want to manufacture BrahMos on Indian soil so that no country has the audacity to cast an evil eye on India,” he added, referring to the missile that is capable of carrying a nuclear warhead.
Singh on Sunday laid the foundation stone of the Defence Technologies and Test Centre and the BrahMos Manufacturing Centre in Lucknow, the capital of the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, along with state’s chief minister Yogi Adityanath.
“There is a neighbouring country. It got separated from India sometime back. I don't know why its intentions vis-a-vis India are always bad. It committed acts of terrorism in Uri and Pulwama,” Singh said referring to Pakistan.
“And then our prime minister took a decision, and we went to the soil of that country and destroyed terrorist hideouts, and when there was a need for airstrikes, we did that successfully. We gave the message that if somebody dares to cast an evil eye on us, then not just on this side of the border, but we can go to the other side and hit them. This is India’s strength,” he added.
India carried out cross-border strikes in September 2016 and February 2019 in response to terror attacks in Uri and Pulwama.
Speaking on the occasion, Adityanath said, “The stand of the country is clear, and it does take security lightly. This is the new India, which does not provoke first, but also does not spare anyone who provokes it.”
The defence minister praised Adityanath for expediting land acquisition for the projects they inaugurated.
“When I spoke to Yogiji and expressed the desire to establish this project, he did not take a second, and said that land will be made available at the earliest. I express my thanks that the chief minister for making 200 acres of land available in just one and a half months,” Singh, a former chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, said.
This photograph taken on April 28, 2026 shows a boy getting "thali", a sacred thread tied to his neck symbolising marriage to Hindu warrior god Aravan during the annual Koovagam transgender festival at the Koothandavar temple in Tamil Nadu's Kallakurichi district. For a few fleeting days each year, at the heart of the Koothandavar Temple where ostracised transgender community members from across India come to honour the Hindu deity Aravan, a tradition rooted in millennia-old Hindu texts -- and to enjoy a brief oasis of freedom.Getty Images
This photograph taken on April 29, 2026 shows a member of the transgender community mourning as a priest cuts the "thali", a sacred thread symbolising end of her marriage to Hindu warrior god Aravan during the annual Koovagam transgender festival at the Koothandavar temple in Tamil Nadu's Kallakurichi district. For a few fleeting days each year, at the heart of the Koothandavar Temple where ostracised transgender community members from across India come to honour the Hindu deity Aravan, a tradition rooted in millennia-old Hindu texts -- and to enjoy a brief oasis of freedom. Getty Images