Growth depends on India’s internal security: Pallam Raju

04 Nov 2009 CII: As India aspires to attain a ‘developed’ nation status in the near future, the momentum of India’s growth depends on how nation’s internal security is maintained and preserved. To this effect the Indian Government has been undertaking continuous efforts to enhance its preparedness to counter various security threats, said Mr. M M Pallam Raju, Minister of State for Defence, Government of India. He was speaking at a Seminar on Network Centricity and National Security organised jointly by Directorate General of Information Systems, The United Service Institution of India (USI) and the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII). He further stated that the intelligence agencies operating at national and state level should be strengthened with coordination mechanism, intelligence analysis and dissemination of inputs in real time to the end user.

Adding a private sector’s dimension to the theme, he stated that there are significant opportunities for the private industry to partner in the homeland security and sub-conventional warfare space. The allocation for India’s homeland security agencies was increased by 25 percent in the budget 2009-2010. Paramilitary forces under the Ministry of Home Affairs include about 1 million personnel and have a budget of Rs 21,634.15 crore (USD 4.3 billion). The equipment and training must be upgraded and modernise in order to have an effective counter-insurgency internal security force.
 
General Deepak Kapoor, PVSM, AVSM, SM, VSM, ADC, Chief of Army Staff stated, advancement in technology has increased threats to national security. Advanced technology is harnessed in terrorist attacks, asymmetric warfare, 4th Generation warfare etc. Therefore timely actions like starting unique IT projects, information grids etc as a backbone to synergise and facilitate information flow are imperative. National security transcends all barriers, and it is as much a responsibility of a citizen as the defence services, General Kapoor added. He stressed on achieving synergy with multiple agencies, drafting nationwide architecture of a Geographical information system.

Major General Sandhu, Deputy Director, USI, stated that challenges to national security are unique and ever emerging in newer forms. He suggested formulation of National Security Doctrine powered by network centricity, collating security inputs and coordination.  He added the need for developing instruments capable of meeting wide spectrum of threats, by creating concepts and putting them into practice.

Lt. Gen PC Katoch, UYSM, AVSM, SC, Director General of Information Systems, Integrated Headquarters of MoD (Army) said that IT has helped in shortening the response time, resource allocation, superior management, enabled effective concepts of speed, command and control. It has enabled synergised response to security threats at national level.
 
Mr. Arvind Thakur, Chairman CII Core Group on Information Systems & Chief Executive officer, NIIT Ltd said that keeping in perspective the issues of national security, CII formulated a National Task Force on Policy Advocacy post 26/11 attacks. The task force aims at strengthening a nationwide security architecture with a focus on policy advocacy, spreading awareness of technology among the security forces and sensitise the industry to maintain an adequate security environment within their premises.

8ak note: There were conflicting views in session that followed on the level of integration, convergence and communication required which made for good debate. While there were some very high level attendees, some people 8ak spoke with said that one of the reasons for holding these seminars was to let the industry know what the armed forces plans are and how they can participate. This was completely missing as after the first day, industry participants did not have gain any insight on what the defence forces needs, what they plan to develop themselves and what they need industry to provide. There were however many high profile delegates and international case studies from Ministry of Home Affairs, Singapore, Elta Systems part of Israel's IAI, Lockheed Martin and Cisco Systems.

Comments

[Jason Verdugo]

They can always talk about what they want to do, but with all the corruption and further lack of experience, they are looking at an uphill battle.