Sources said the country's most formidable missile will undergo one more such pre-induction trial "within this year" before it is inducted into the Agni-V regiment already raised by the tri-Service Strategic Forces Command (SFC) with the requisite command and control structures.
Once that happens, India will gate-crash into the super-exclusive club of countries with ICBMs (missiles with a range of over 5,000-5,500km) like the US, Russia, China, France and the UK.
While a belligerent North Korea over the last six-seven month has rattled the US with tests of its two new ICBMs, Hwasong-14 and Hwasong-15, expert opinion is still divided whether they are fully-operational and deployed as of now.