To counter China,India deploys Akash missiles in northeast

The six Akash missiles are being deployed across the region to achieve "meaningful and credible deterrence" against China along the 4,057-km Line of Actual Control (LAC).Observing that India lives in the "middle of a disturbed neighbourhood", Defence Minister Arun Jaitley today said the country's defence preparedness is the "best guarantee" of peace and pitched for urgent development of the military hardware indigenously. He said indigenisation in the field of defence equipment manufacture should have started three decades back but regretted that it had not happened and as a result India became the largest importer of military hardware.