New Delhi, March 28 -- Some nationalists would like to mark 27 March 2019 as the day India showed the world what it could do in case a war were to go extra-terrestrial. It's the day that the country conducted "Mission Shakti" by testing an anti-satellite missile (A-SAT) for a precision strike. An orbiter called Microsat-R, which was moving around the globe some 300km above sea level and, that too, at an estimated 27,000kmph, was shot mid-orbit by a rocket developed under the Manmohan Singh government and okayed for a live test later by the Narendra Modi regime. It is no coincidence that the name of the exercise recalls India's 1998 Pokhran tests of nuclear devices, termed "Operation Shakti". There are indeed some parallels, even if not of the same significance. Defence analysts speak of a triad of air, land and sea warfare capability. As Prime Minister Narendra Modi has declared, Indian prowess now extends far beyond. Espionage satellites could be struck down if hostilities break out. Spying could thus be deterred. Long-haul nukes could perhaps be intercepted as well, but it would be a folly to see this technology as a nuclear shield. An incoming nuke could be neutralized high above the earth, but an A-SAT is helpless against a weapon of mass destruction fired from a low altitude. In that sense, the test doesn't do very much to safeguard the country....