India’s second nuclear-capable ballistic missile submarine joined its naval fleet late last month, a move the government says strengthens its nuclear deterrent as New Delhi casts a wary eye at both China and Pakistan.

But India is still playing catch-up, at least compared with China, as the People’s Liberation Army grows its fleet – as well as its land and air capabilities – amid simmering tensions along their shared border.

The nuclear-powered sub, INS Arighaat – “Destroyer of the Enemy” in Sanskrit – will “help in establishing strategic balance” in the region, Indian Defense Minister Rajnath Singh said at an August 29 commissioning ceremony at Visakhapatnam naval base, the headquarters of India’s Eastern Naval Command on the Bay of Bengal coast.

That balance currently tilts in favor of China, with the world’s largest navy by numbers, including six operational Jin-class nuclear-powered ballistic submarines that outclass India’s two – Arighaat and its predecessor in the same class, INS Arihant – in firepower.

The Chinese subs can carry a dozen ballistic missiles with ranges of at least 8,000 kilometers (4,970 miles) and have the ability to carry multiple nuclear warheads, according to the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance, a non-profit organization promoting the development and deployment of missile defense for the United States and its allies.

Both 366 feet long with a 6,000-ton displacement, according to an analysis by the open-source intelligence agency Janes, Arighaat and Arihant carry K-15 Sagarika ballistic missiles that can be launched from four vertical launch tubes. But the range of the nuclear-tipped K-15 is thought to be only around 750 kilometers (466 miles), limiting the targets that can be struck from the Indian Ocean.

“The INS Arihant-class can barely reach Chinese targets along the eastern Sino-Indian border from the coastal waters of northern Bay of Bengal, which is dangerously shallow for a submarine,” said analyst Carl Schuster, a former director of operations at the US Pacific Command’s Joint Intelligence Center.

The de facto border between India and China, known as the Line of Actual Control, has been a longtime flashpoint between the two. Troops most recently clashed there in 2022 and in 2020, when hand-to-hand fighting between the two sides resulted in the deaths of at least 20 Indian and four Chinese soldiers in Aksai Chin.

India developing second-strike capabilities

The Indian government has been tight-lipped about the capabilities of the Arighaat, saying only “technological advancements undertaken indigenously on this submarine make it significantly more advanced than its predecessor,” which was commissioned eight years ago.

India has not even released pictures of Arighaat since its August 29 commissioning.

Naval analysts say India is clearly on course to develop a subsea nuclear deterrent that, while it may not be as big as China’s, will pack enough second-strike wallop to deter Beijing from taking hostile action against it.

India has newer, bigger subs with longer-range missiles in the works. Those missiles could have ranges up to 6,000 kilometers (3,728 miles), according to analysts, enabling strikes anywhere in China.

“Although India’s sea-based nuclear deterrent remains in relative infancy, the country clearly has an ambition to field a sophisticated naval nuclear force with ballistic missile submarines at its core,” said Matt Korda, associate director for the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists.

India’s next ballistic missile subs could be years away, however, if history is any predictor of the future. Arighaat was launched almost seven years ago, and if that timeline from launch to commissioning applies to the next Indian ballistic missile sub, it won’t join the service until 2030.

The prestige of SSBNs

Still, a second ballistic missile sub does do something for India’s naval and military psyche, said Tom Shugart, an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security and a former US Navy submarine commander.

“It is a marker of being a great power,” Shugart said, pointing out that the five members of the United Nations Security Council – the United States, Russia, China, the United Kingdom and France – all have nuclear-capable ballistic missile submarines, or SSBNs.

The smallest of those SSBN fleets, those of Britain and France, have four boats each, a number Shugart sees as the minimum for keeping one at sea at all times.

Nuclear-powered submarines are complex machines. When things break and need repairing, or just when regular maintenance is needed, the work can take a month or more.

For instance, the US Navy’s Ohio-class SSBNs spend on average 77 days at sea followed by 35 days in port for maintenance, according to the US Navy’s Pacific Fleet.

Refits and overhauls take up to 27 months for a nuclear reactor refueling, according to US Navy documents.

“By having more than one, there’s a better chance India will be able to have one of them at sea in a survivable status,” Shugart said.

“But to keep one at sea at all times is probably going to take more boats” than the current two, he said.

A wary China

Before its commissioning, the Arighaat was drawing attention in China, with state-run newspaper Global Times quoting unnamed Chinese experts as saying India should not “use it to flex muscles.”

“Nuclear weapons should be used in safeguarding peace and stability, not muscle flexing or nuclear blackmailing,” the Global Times report said.

Other analysts have said New Delhi is just responding to increased pressure from Beijing, which now has the largest navy in the world in terms of sheer number of vessels.

“China’s extensive naval buildup and the regular deployment of fully armed nuclear deterrence patrols by Type 094 submarines (the Jin class) are perceived as a threat by other countries in the region, including India,” said Kandlikar Venkatesh, analyst at the GlobalData analytics company.

“The deployment of Arihant-class submarines will provide India some degree of parity with its Chinese counterparts,” he said, adding that more submarine investment is coming, $31.6 billion over the next decade.

Bigger subs and longer-range missiles are reportedly under development, which could eventually see India field nuclear-tipped weapons with a range of 12,000 kilometers (almost 7,500 miles), Venkatesh said.

Another regional rival

It’s not just China that India is looking at with its sub development, according to Abhijit Singh, a senior fellow at the Observer Research Foundation in Mumbai.

“The real impetus for India’s expansion of its second-strike capability is, in fact, the significant growth of the Pakistani and Chinese navies in the Indian Ocean,” Singh wrote in an op-ed for the Hindustan Times, adding that Islamabad is in the process of acquiring eight Chinese-designed Type 039B attack submarines as it modernizes its fleet.

“Pakistan continues to narrow the sea-power differential with India,” Singh wrote.

India and Pakistan have long been at odds in the disputed and heavily militarized region of Kashmir, which both countries claim in its entirety. A de facto border called the Line of Control divides it between New Delhi and Islamabad. The dispute has led to three wars between the two nations.

China remains one of Pakistan’s most important international backers and a major investor in the country.

Proliferation fears

Korda, the Federation of American Scientists expert, says it’s not the subs themselves that give him cause for worry, but the multiple-warhead missiles they carry.

That technology – known as Multiple Independently targetable Reentry Vehicles (MIRV) – also applies to land-based missiles and can be destabilizing, Korda argues.

“India, Pakistan, and China are all developing missiles that can carry multiple warheads,” he says.

India announced to great fanfare in April that it had joined the MIRV club, which includes the US, UK, France, Russia and China, with a successful test of the domestically developed Agni-V intercontinental ballistic missile.

Pakistan has also claimed to have MIRV technology, but experts say the claim is unverified.

Adversaries need to assume such claims are true, lest they be caught unprepared in the event of actual conflict.

“These systems are ideal first-strike weapons, but they are also the first weapons that would likely be targeted in an opposing first strike,” Korda says.

“As a result, their deployment across the region will likely kick the collective arms race into a higher gear, as countries seek to build missile defenses and conventional strike options that can counter them.”

At least 74 people have died and scores more are still missing in Myanmar following heavy flooding and landslides caused by Typhoon Yagi, state media reported on Sunday.

The flooding across the civil war-torn country has impacted more than 450 villages and wards, according to Myanmar News Agency (MNA).

It added that search and rescue operations were underway to locate 89 people still missing. Around 65,000 homes have also been destroyed, according to MNA.

Images from news agency AFP showed submerged homes and vehicles in the city of Taungoo, an hour south of the capital Naypyidaw. Other images show residents evacuating on boats and bamboo rafts, their belongings wrapped in plastic bags.

Typhoon Yagi, Asia’s most powerful storm this year, left a trail of destruction across Southeast Asia and southern China after sweeping the region with heavy rains and strong winds.

In Vietnam, the death toll has risen to at least 226 as a result of the storm and the landslides and flash floods it triggered, the government’s disaster agency said Thursday, according to Reuters.

And in Thailand, nine people died last week from poor weather brought by the typhoon, Reuters reported, citing the Thai government – out of a total 33 deaths nationwide since August from rain-related incidents including landslides.

Storms are being made more intense and deadlier by the warming ocean, scientists have long warned. While developed nations bear a greater historical responsibility for the human-induced climate crisis, developing nations and small-island states are suffering the worst impacts.

A missile was launched from Yemen into central Israel on Sunday morning, according to the Israeli military, in a rare instance of a missile penetrating so far into the country’s territory since its war in Gaza began.

The projectile crossed into Israeli territory and fell in an open area in central Israel, with no injuries reported, according to the Israel Defense Forces. Explosion sounds heard in the area originated from Israeli military interceptions, the IDF said, adding that it is still checking “the results of the interception.”

Videos and images shared by the Israel Fire and Rescue Authority on Telegram show large plumes of smoke billowing into the air over an open field, and shattered glass inside a train station in Modi’in, a city between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

Israeli police said they were working with the police bomb squad in the Shfela area, also known as the Judaean Foothills, where an interceptor fragment had fallen. Authorities are now isolating the impact site and scanning for additional interceptor remains, police said.

Also on Sunday morning, approximately 40 projectiles crossed from Lebanon into Israel’s northern region, some of them intercepted and others falling in open areas, the IDF said. No injuries were reported, and authorities are putting out fires caused by the fallen projectiles.

The military added that an explosive drone had crossed from Lebanon into the northern town of Metula, though no damage was caused.

Tensions between Israel, Yemen and Lebanon have been escalating for months as Israel has waged its war on Hamas in Gaza after the militant group’s October 7 attacks. World leaders have warned of the potential for a wider Middle East conflict.

Since the war began, the Iran-backed Houthi group, which controls Yemen’s most populous regions, has regularly targeted Israel with drones and missiles. Most of these have been intercepted by Israel’s defenses or those of its allies.

It has also targeted shipping in the Red Sea, as a rejection of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.

Most notably in July, the group claimed responsibility for a deadly drone attack in Tel Aviv, Israel’s commercial center – the first time the city has been struck by a Houthi drone.

Israel struck back the next day with deadly airstrikes on a Yemeni port – the first such strike on Yemen, according to Israeli officials.

The Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah in Lebanon has also carried out attacks on northern Israel, sending rockets and drones on Saturday targeting Israeli military sites.

These direct attacks on each other’s soil have raised alarm that there could be a new front in the ongoing conflict, which is already threatening to spill over across the region.

Israel launched its war in Gaza after the militant group Hamas’ cross-border October 7 attacks, in which more than 1,200 Israelis were killed and 250 taken hostage, according to Israeli authorities.

Since then, more than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s military operations in Gaza, according to the health ministry in the enclave. The health ministry does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its figures, but says most of the dead are women and children.

Multicolored posters, white streamers and Palestinian flags made of paper decorate a tent in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza. School rucksacks stuffed with clothes, small pillows and floral blankets are strewn on the floor.

More than a dozen girls and boys sit cross-legged inside a makeshift classroom along the coastal region. Their eyes dart across a large whiteboard as they recite after their teacher, Oula Al Ghoul, who gently encourages her students. The sound of Israeli drones buzzes overhead – a stark reminder of the fighting that has engulfed the strip for more than 11 months.

“Even the parents come and ask about their children’s progress in writing, asking if they are improving.”

But her initiative is the exception. As children across the Middle East begin the new semester, those in Gaza will be unable to return to school. The Israeli offensive launched after the Hamas-led October 7 attacks has spawned a humanitarian crisis and halted educational services in the besieged enclave.

At least 45,000 first-graders in the Gaza Strip will be unable to start the school year, according to the United Nations’ children’s agency, UNICEF.

“The first graders join 625,000 children who have already been denied an entire school year,” and face the prospect of a second missed year of education, the agency said.

Israel’s bombing campaign has destroyed 123 schools and universities in Gaza, according to the Government Media Office (GMO) there. At least 11,500 students and 750 teachers have been killed, the GMO reported on Monday.

Earlier this year, the UN accused Israeli forces of the “systematic obliteration” of the academic system in Gaza, citing independent experts, and called for the protection of schoolchildren. The IDF has said strikes on schools target Hamas militants and has previously insisted it take steps to minimize harm to civilians. Hamas has denied embedding fighters in civilian infrastructure.

“The war destroyed all my ambitions and there was nothing left.”

Israel launched its military offensive on October 7 after the militant group Hamas, which governs Gaza, attacked southern Israel. At least 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 others abducted, according to Israeli authorities.

‘No schools, no books, nothing’

Dozens of Palestinian boys in dusty shoes carry empty jerry cans at a school which has become an improvised displacement shelter in Deir al-Balah. The sun beats down on their faces as they queue to collect water aid for their families.

There’s no guarantee of safety for those sheltering in schools. At least 70% of schools run by UNRWA have been hit during the war – 95% of which were being used as shelters for displaced people – the agency reported on September 9.

On Wednesday, at least 18 people, including UNRWA staff, were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a UN school-turned-shelter in the Nuseirat camp in central Gaza, according to the Gaza Civil Defense and hospital officials.

The IDF claimed the school “was used by Hamas terrorists to plan and execute terrorist attacks against IDF troops and the state of Israel.” UNRWA said that their employees were teachers. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described Israeli strikes on schools as “dramatic violations of international humanitarian law.”

“The students’ situation is tough; they need to be learning right now… Unfortunately, none of the students can write. There are no schools, no books, nothing,” said Mohammad Masoud, a teacher. “Instead of being in their classes or universities, students are either selling on the streets or trying to help their families by standing in line for water or food.”

Meanwhile, at least 19,000 children have been separated from their parents or caregivers, the UN reported in August.

‘They are literally wading through rubbish’

Further south, in Al-Mawasi, Khan Younis, children run barefoot through the littered streets, according to a relief worker in the sprawling coastal town.

Some search through mounds of waste  for items they can resell, said Liz Allcock, head of protection at the UK-based NGO Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP).

“I’ve seen children with no shoes on, barefoot and amongst rubbish dumps that extend as far as the eye can see. They are literally wading through rubbish, plastic, all sorts of waste. It is a highly hazardous environment.”

Aid agencies say they are unable to offer adequate protection or refuge for children, citing aid restrictions, strikes on Israeli-designated humanitarian zones and repeated evacuation orders. In June, the UN added Israel’s military to a global list of offenders that have committed violations against children. Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad were also added to the list, according to a diplomatic source.

“It’s a case of compounding vulnerabilities that are unlike any other place I have worked as a humanitarian,” said Allcock.

“The actions taken by the Israeli military that have resulted in this situation – the denial of adequate aid, the bombardment and airstrikes on civilians and humanitarian zones – is a violation of every kind of possible child right that is enshrined in international law.”

At least six people have died after some of the heaviest rain in years hit central and eastern Europe, causing flooding and widespread disruption.

A slow-moving low pressure system dubbed Storm Boris dumped a month’s worth of rain onto several of Europe’s historic capitals, including Vienna, Bratislava and Prague. The heavy rainfall continued to pummel the region into Sunday.

It comes after four people died in Romania, where the rainfall left hundreds stranded in flooded areas.

Rescue services have been launched in hard-hit counties as authorities warn that they have recorded the heaviest rainfall in 100 years over the past 24 hours.

Rivers have burst their banks in Poland and the Czech Republic. In southwest Poland, 1,600 people were evacuated in Klodzko county as local rivers reached record high water levels and broke their banks. Klodzko, a town of 25,000, was left partially submerged in water on Sunday.

Poland’s Prime Minister, Donald Tusk told reporters Sunday: “We have the first confirmed death by drowning, here in the Klodzko County.”

“The situation is still very dramatic in many place,” he added. “Unfortunately, these situations are repeating themselves in many places… but some residents sometimes underestimate the level of threat and refuse to evacuate.”

Significant flooding is expected to continue in the Czech Republic, where authorities have ordered mandatory evacuations for some areas. Footage released by the Czech Republic Fire and Rescue Service showed flooded streets in the southern Benešově nad Černou municipality, where two women who didn’t follow evacuation orders had to be rescued by boat.

In Germany, southern and eastern states in particular are preparing for flooding. Flood warnings have been issued for rivers in the state of Saxony.

In neighboring Austria, heavy rainfall has caused water levels to rise in several rivers and rescue services have been called out to parts of the country. Many municipalities in Lower Austria have declared a state of emergency as heavy rainfall continued into Sunday.

Red alerts, the highest level of warning, have been issued for portions of Poland, Germany, the Czech Republic, Austria and Slovakia. This level of alert is associated with “intense meteorological phenomena” and “major damage is likely,” according to Meteoalarm.