India’s missile lady alias Agniputri Tessy

--Anil Narendra

Tessy Thomas is known as the Missile Lady of India. Super power missile Agni-V has been successfully test-fired on 19th April. India not only created a history by developing an inter-continental missile with a range of 5,000 kms, but has provided the world a new insight into India's achievements. Credit for this achievement goes to Tessy Thomas, the Agni Project Director of The Defence Research & Development Organisation (DRDO). 48-year old Tessy wants to develop a missile an incomparable missile in the world. After successful development of Agni-V missile, Tessy's team is now embarking upon developing a missile that could provide success report of the war-head launched through it, whose success could be tracked at the Base Lab. Tessy was born at Allapuzha district of Kerala in 1964. His father was an accountant in a firm. Tessy had visualized developing a rocket in the childhood itself. A Rocket Centre of the DRDO close to Allapuzha was her inspiration and her fascination with rockets and missile began there. Test launches of rockets were carried out from this Centre. She joined the Agni team in 1968. After completing her engineering education from the Thrissur College of Engineering, Tessy came to DRDO. Later, she did her MTech in 'Guided Missile Technology' from the Deence Institute of Advanced Technology, Pune. Tessy remembers the first test flight of Agni-3, which ended in failure. Dr APJ Abdul Kalam was the Chief of Missile Project then. Tessy says that Dr Kalam was a role model for all in the field of missiles. She considers Dr Kalam as her Guru. She says that today, people may call her missile lady or missile woman, but the real hero of Missile Technology is Dr Kalam. Tessy considers her 75 year old mother as her biggest inspirational source. Her mother had named her after the nobel laureate Mother Teresa. Tessy says that she has been working for the welfare of the country like Mother Teresa, who had dedicated her life for the betterment of the humanity. When asked as to how she can relate her work to peace for humanity, when the missiles, she is developing are to be used for destruction, she replied that when a country becomes strong and powerful, then none can dare threaten it.
In such circumstances, deterrent missiles like Agni-V act as 'ambassador of peace'. It may be mentioned that the range of Agni-V covers whole of China. With this achievement in the strategic field, India has gained new power. Now it stands equal to USA, France, Russia and China. After this successful test-launch, China's tone has also undergone a change and now, it has started referring to India as a friendly neighbour.