India on Saturday successfully test-fired what is hailed as a gen-next state-of-the-art interceptor missile from a defence base off Odisha coast, achieving a significant milestone in its ongoing Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) programme. The homegrown anti-ballistic missile, dubbed Prithvi Defence Vehicle (PDV), travels at supersonic speed and is capable of destroying targets at a high altitude of more than 120 km in the exo-atmospheric region. The interceptor missile was fired at about 7.45 am from the launching complex-IV of Abdul Kalam Island (formerly Wheeler Island), a couple of minutes after the target, mimicking an enemy missile, took off from a warship anchored in the Bay of Bengal nearly 70 km off Paradip coast. Prithvi Defence Vehicle, the interceptor indigenously developed by Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), destroyed the target missile at a...