India is working on a missile shield around its capital Delhi to make it immune to military or 9/11 attacks from aircraft, missiles and drones, The Times of India wrote.

Indian Defence Ministry has approved the purchase of the National Advanced Surface to Air Missile System-II (NASAMS-II) worth around $1 billion from the US.

NASAMS is a medium-range, network-centric air defence system designed and developed jointly by Raytheon and Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace.

New Delhi chose to work with NASAMS that guards Washington D.C. This system is armed with the three-dimensional Sentinel radars, short- and medium-range missiles, launchers, fire distribution centres and command-and-control units to quickly detect, track and shoot down multiple airborne targets at same time. NASAMS employs the Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile (AIM-120) as the primary weapon.

The system has also been deployed in several NATO countries in Europe. The Royal Norwegian Air Force (RNoAF) was the first customer to introduce the NASAMS (Norwegian Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System) program.

The decision to acquire NASAMS comes simultaneously with ongoing efforts to create a two-tier ballistic missile defence shield designed to track and destroy incoming ballistic missiles both oxygen breathing and exo-atmosphere.