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As their aspirations grow, India and China are reaching for the moon and beyond. Their space race is part of a jostling for regional influence and prestige as well as the technological and military benefits success will bring, with India aiming to land an astronaut on the moon by 2016-18.

But despite its economic, geopolitical, and military rise, India still has more undernourished people than the whole of sub-Saharan Africa. While the government has approved an ambitious plan to subsidise food for two-thirds of its population, there are questions as to whether it makes any real substantial change and how affordable it is as the country struggles to contain its fiscal deficit.

India, however, remains determined to compete with China, which has seemingly endless funds, and is set to land an exploratory craft on the moon this year with plans for a manned exploration later. Both nations also have Mars in their sights.

China is advancing into this new frontier on several fronts, sending its first man into space ten years ago and its first woman last year. It completed a spacewalk in 2008 and an unmanned docking between an orbital module and rocket last year.

Meanwhile, one of the countries caught up in this competition for the conquest of space is Sri Lanka, which is busily launching its own modest satellite program. It is doing so in co-operation with China, with whom it is forging closer ties, rather than India, leading to Indian concerns that this could pose a threat to its security.

Sri Lanka's first communications satellite was launched from China's Space Centre in Sichuan Province in November, with two more launches scheduled for June this year and December 2015.

China has sought to soothe regional security fears by creating the Asia Pacific Space Co-operation Organisation. Member states Bangladesh, Indonesia, Iran, Pakistan, Mongolia, Peru and Thailand implicitly accept that China remains the leader in the field of space, just as it is in other spheres.

As India and China ramp up their space programs they are keeping a close watch on each other's progress for signs of military and technological advancement.

And China's growing ties with Pakistan are causing India concern. It fears the lessons learned from China's military space program could be passed on. Moreover, India sees China's achievements as detracting from its own prestige, making it appear to once again be playing second fiddle.

This, together with the role that space power played during the first Persian Gulf War, has caused India to increase its space efforts and dramatically shift its goals -from projects such as telemetry and transponders on fishing boats to lunar missions and military applications.