Intelligence & National Security Discussion

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 01 Jun 2011 22:23

veraK, Indian system did throw up people like Hoover. B.N. Mullick of IB was one such figure. However his tenure saw the 1962 Chinese aggression. It was realised that external and internal dont mix and RAW was created by Mrs G based on internal reviews. So the price was paid by IB not Mullick for the failure. In retrospect Mullick was the intel czar the post is now resurrected with NSA after splitting the job. A dynamic system will always make changes for the better as the situation demands. Nothing is cast in concrete.

RahulM, IB does these very well counter intelligence ie going after foreign spies, counter terrorism etc and political intelligence.

While people decry the last task, in the Westminster system and coalition politics the survival of the cabinet depends on that and is an essential task.
BTW, IB is not under PMO but MHA.

Sridhar · Post by **Sridhar** » 01 Jun 2011 22:44

IB might be under MHA for administrative purposes, but the Director IB reports to the PMO (which includes NSA) directly on intelligence matters and does not go through MHA. DIB can directly put up files for PMOs notice. This has been the case from the beginning. This is also true of other intelligence agencies to a smaller degree. For instance, the Director General of Revenue Intelligence is part of the Finance Ministry and normally only reports within the ministry hierarchy. However, at times of need, there is a channel directly to the PMO (for instance, after the Mumbai blasts of 1993, when DRI had a lot of intelligence on the Dawood gang). Of course RAW is part of the Cabinet Secretariat and hence reports directly to the PMO.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 01 Jun 2011 23:06

Good. The intel agencies are all under PMO as they should be.

devesh · Post by **devesh** » 02 Jun 2011 02:54

^^^
oversight of an external intel agency by politicians works only if: a. the politicians are genuine, b. the intel agency is not in any way related to internal policing and law enforcement.

assuming that (a) is given only to top INC/BJP brass, and assuming that political pillars outside of political control, like Sonia, don't have a say in the appointment or behavior of these minority/majority leaders, then we move on to (b). RAW cadre is taken from IPS and other govt agencies. all directors have been from the police cadre. imvho, having politicians oversee any intel agency, especially an external one, that is staffed from internal police cadres is a bad precedent.

also, the elephant in the room is the assumption that India has or is on the path to developing the kind of "stable" political system of US. I'm not convinced that the era of "personality cults" and fractious coalitions politics is behind us. personality cult remains a very strong possibility that should keep RAW from political control. even if someone like IG would use RAW for "good," once the precedent is set, the Committee which oversees will become nothing more than pet appointments by political power brokers.

Indian political system has achieved no where near the level of "stability," and "institutional framework" required to have the external intel agency placed under oversight powers of the political arm of the rashtra. we need a bunch of other administrative, legal, and executive reforms before placing RAW or any avatar of ext intel institution under political purview.

somnath · Post by **somnath** » 02 Jun 2011 06:08

Sridhar wrote:IB might be under MHA for administrative purposes, but the Director IB reports to the PMO (which includes NSA) directly on intelligence matters and does not go through MHA

That is not really genericaly right..It was the case for the time MK Narayanan was the NSA-sum-intel-czar, and we had a lightweight ineffectual Shivraj Patil as home minister...Typically though, we have had pretty strong personalities as MHA - the orginial "sardar" to the wannabe "sardar" (!) to PC, and they have kept IB formly under their "oversight"...But officers like DIB (or for that matter even Secretaries of important ministries like Finance and External Affairs) have direct "access" to the PM in any case...During any crisis situation, protocol barriers matter little..

the issue is that various intel agencies report to various ministries - RAW to the Cabinet Secretariat, IB to the Home Ministry, MI/DIA to MoD, DRI to finance, no one knows who NTRO reprts to

...To be honest, its similar everywhere else, but in our case, with a culture of ad hocism the problems are multipleied..

Its funny that people "fear" oversight by the legislature on grounds of potential fifth columnists coming into the Par committees and somehow "sabotaging" operations...We live in a democracy - the same potential "fifth columnists" an tomorrow actually become ministers and control these intel agencies sometime...

People should simply read some of the sub commitee proceedings of other ministries - they are widely available...

Currently, what we have in the intel setup is a tyrany of executive control without political accountability..So one set of politicians (actually a small group) and their favourite bureaucrats manage the show as they please - no questions plausibly asked barring speculative ones...A Parliamentary overight will force them to submit to the scrutiny of their working to the highest sovereign of the land, hene enforece political accountability...

Rahul M · Post by **Rahul M** » 02 Jun 2011 06:40

devesh, you are really not getting the message. it is already under COMPLETE political control, that of the ruling party. parliamentary oversight would bring that back to a more balanced situation so that no one has too much control of the agencies. what has any of this got to do with personality cults ?

chetak · Post by **chetak** » 02 Jun 2011 07:11

vera_k wrote:
ramana wrote:Until the politcal control of intelligence to retain power is changed, India will continue to suffer from gaps and there will be reams of opinion from former chiefs of how things would/could be better but no evidence of what they did to change the system!
Why hasn't the intelligence setup given rise to India's own J Edgar Hoover? Seems they are not ambitious and are content to be flunkies, when they are ideally placed to blackmail everyone, Prime Minister on down, to get what they need.

The politicos will never tolerate such a case in the name of "democracy".

The Icarus analogy of 'flying too close to the sun' will be applied to such babus who will then be de fanged and de winged.

Look at what maharani did to Kalam as an illustrative point in case.

somnath · Post by **somnath** » 02 Jun 2011 07:44

Rahul M wrote: it is already under COMPLETE political control, that of the ruling party. parliamentary oversight would bring that back to a more balanced situation so that no one has too much control of the agencies

Control still remains with the ruling executive..Its not as if today Yashwant Sinha, being a member of the Par subcommittee on Finance has a say in economic policy-making...These subcommittees enforce accountability..So YS can ask the Ministry why it missed its FRBM targets, makes that public, and the ministry is forced to reply...If the ministry tries to fudge, in a couple of iterations, the info being publicly available has the potential of blowing up...

Rahul M · Post by **Rahul M** » 02 Jun 2011 07:47

splitting hair are we ?

somnath · Post by **somnath** » 02 Jun 2011 07:55

^^^Not really...Big difference...Legislature and Executive have clearly defined roles...It is not the legislature's job to start exectutive monitoring of govt departments..That will only lead to chaos...Legislature's job is to make laws and hold the govt accountable for its actions..Which means asking questions, demainding answers and then articulating the same in the public domain for the people to make a decision on the merits...

For example, in the case of Kim Davis, the Par subcommittee would ask questions on coordination between IB and RAW, between IB and IAF, why these broke down and so on...And the govt has to answer, and also provide the remedial measures it has taken...The sub committee however cannot sit and start defining admiinstrative actiosn that need taken - eg, the JIC needs to have weekly meetings, or so-and-so needs to be dismissed for dereliction of duty, or go buy this spoecific piece of equipment and so on..

Rahul M · Post by **Rahul M** » 02 Jun 2011 07:56

and who said legislature was going to start monitoring at executive level ? your fascination with strawmen in turn fascinates me.

somnath · Post by **somnath** » 02 Jun 2011 08:34

Rahul M wrote:and who said legislature was going to start monitoring at executive level ? your fascination with strawmen in turn fascinates me

Strwmen?! Anyway, I was responding to this..

Rahul M wrote:parliamentary oversight would bring that back to a more balanced situation so that no one has too much control of the agencies

A Par subcommittee oversight does not in any manner dilute the total and absolute control that the political executive has over govt departments - that was the point..If we are on the same page, fine!

Raghavendra · Post by **Raghavendra** » 02 Jun 2011 18:59

Suspected ISI agent held in Roorkee http://www.zeenews.com/news710393.html

shyamd · Post by **shyamd** » 04 Jun 2011 16:13

Anti-terror co-operation: CIA to train top police officials

This September, top police officials will be trained by CIA agents on the methods of conducting surveillance of terror suspects.

This is the first time such a course is being undertaken in the nation.

The US, on a request by India, has agreed to send its CIA agents following the US-India Homeland Security dialogue on May 27.

On May 30, the home ministry asked all states and central armed forces to send in their nominations of officers within 30 days.

The workshop is designed for 20 law enforcement officers and the US says the officers selected for the course will hold their posts for two years.

However, officials from the Intelligence Bureau, Research and Analysis Wing and Military Intelligence cannot be included, because of the US policy of not training spies of another country. The home ministry is now waiting for a clearance from the ministry of external affairs (MHA).

The MHA says the objectives of this course will be to focus on contemporary ways of keeping tabs on terror suspects. Through field exercises, the participants will develop the knowledge and skills necessary to conduct surveillance operations in a team environment.

"Participants will be able to reconstruct real-life scenarios to conduct foot, vehicle, and fixed-point surveillance in urban and rural environments. They will be able to organise and develop surveillance teams to conduct route analysis and site surveys, prepare surveillance communication plans and develop and utilise a database management programme to assist in analysis of information," an MHA letter to the states said.

Senior US agents will also conduct a threeweek course from June 6-June 24 at the Central School of Weapon and Tactics of the BSF at Indore. They will train 24 top Indian policemen on how to become tactical commanders and lead police anti-terrorism and special operation units against terrorists.

The course aims at training policemen to plan for tactical operations in a terror environment, plan for successful tactical resolutions of terrorist incidents, conduct site surveys and vulnerability assessment, develop operational order and formulate standard operating procedures for tactical teams, the MHA said.

So there is 2 issues here: Surveillance training
Leadership in counter terror situation.

Well, I did point out many moons ago about poor surveillance skills.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 04 Jun 2011 22:49

Ak Vermaji on Need for reforms and the right way of doing it.

http://southasiaanalysis.org/papers44/paper4353.html

chackojoseph · Post by **chackojoseph** » 06 Jun 2011 15:26

NATGRID Project Gets in Principle Approval from Cabinet Committee on Security

devesh · Post by **devesh** » 06 Jun 2011 20:18

on a more cautious note, there will be lot of temptation for political meddling and harakiri. the sheer amount of info that NATGRID can collect is something to pause and think about. we are, after all, a democratic and civil society and don't want to be a Police State.....we need to ensure that NATGRID and future versions of it remain strictly apolitical...

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 06 Jun 2011 20:52

The 18 month delay was to put in place checks and balances and point so of contact (in the only 11 agencies authorised to handle the data) for accessing the data so there is tracebility and more importantly accountability in who gets the data. I beleive there is a also a judicial step in turning on the search.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 07 Jun 2011 01:57

Memories of Q in Kim Davy case

Memories of Q in Kim Davy ‘botch-up’

June 07, 2011 2:30:39 AM

Udayan Namboodiri

It’s a time-tested trick played by our police whenever the rich and powerful are to be protected in a criminal case. Dilute the charge-sheet. Or, file a strong chargesheet and then ensure that during the proceedings (when media attention has moved away) important documents or pieces of evidence are not produced or fudged. There’s an old yarn in the country’s lower courts which goes like this: “Better than the best defense lawyer is a helpful prosecutor.”

The Kim Davy extradition case is a replay of this old tradition. We are not saying that the alleged mastermind of the 1995 Purulia Arms Drop (PAD) case is rich or powerful. But the Congress-led UPA-2 Government perhaps fears that this man, if extradited, may have a dangerous tale to tell.

So, on Monday, the very first day of the hearing of the extradition proceedings in Denmark’s Eastern High Court, it was apparent that the Government of India was not very serious about getting Kim Davy on a plane back to Kolkata to face trial for his “key role” in the PAD case.

First, the two-member CBI delegation to the hearings, an Inspector-General from Kolkata and a prosecutor, submitted a warrant issued by a Kolkata court which had expired in January 2011.

This would have gone undetected had the keen defense counsel for Davy not pointed it out. On Tuesday, this “goof up” was reported widely in the Danish media. Another day passed before the Indian media got wind of it. Which was understandable because the court room proceedings were conducted in Danish and whatever was spoken between the Judges and the lawyers was not comprehended by the few Indian journalists who had turned up to cover the case.

Significantly, it was only on Wednesday that the CBI decided to go on a face saving mission –even as it claimed that production of a warrant was “unnecessary”. Finally, on Thursday evening, a CBI spokesperson announced that a revalidated warrant (up to August 20) had been procured.

Along with that, all the shop worn admissions about “oversight” were issued. But a tame media asked no questions about accountability and so that was out.

The Pioneer learns that this was not the only “goof up” ( a term thrown about at random by Times Now TV, the other pesky media) in the Kim Davy case. The CBI failed to produce photographic evidence of the conditions in Kolkata’s jails to back up the rosy claims of IG (Prisons) of that State. All they had was a publicity brochure of the West Bengal Government’s Correctional Administration which had some pictures of smiling convicts.

It would be presumptive to state that this is the end of the road for CBI insofar as extraditing Kim Davy is concerned. The five-member Bench comprising the most senior Judges of Denmark which is hearing the case, may or may not take these “oversights” seriously. But what is moot for the people of India is the strong parallels between this case and the other famous extradition “goof-up” – Ottavio Quattorchhi.

In June 2007, the Congress-led UPA was caught between a rock and a hard place when the Italian businessman with links to party president Sonia Gandhi, was arrested in Argentina. The ruling party stood to lose a lot if Quattrocchi was ever brought back to India. Yet, this could not be made apparent to the people of India and the Government of Argentina – national prestige was at stake. So what did the CBI do? It did some “oversighting”, “goof ups”, whatever. It delayed sending the right legal documents to Argentina. Result: Quattrocchi was released.

Kim Davy, like Quattrocchi, has always had a charmed life. On December 22, 1995, while six of his comrades including the debonair British arms agent Peter Bleach were caught in Bombay airport, the elusive Dane slipped away. Bleach and the Latvian crew members of the An-26 used in PAD suffered imprisonment in a Kolkata jail, but Davy was left to lead a good life in his home country. Until 2002, the Government of India actually pretended Davy was untraceable. Of course, that translated into a lot of foreign trips to CBI officers keen to beat the Indian summer.

On April 28 this year, Davy stunned the nation by declaring on live TV that his escape on that fated morning was facilitated by an Indian MP and some senior CBI officers. This may have prompted the Congress-led UPA-2 to take a new view on his extradition. After having lost in the lower court of Hillerod, the Government perhaps decided that it was better to leave Davy alone.

And, so, a chain of “blunders” was let loose.

Apart from the two “oversights”, the CBI went to the appeals court with much the same case which was earlier thrown out. Not a single new witness was produced, nor was cross-examination of those produced by the Defense side attempted. On Wednesday, Peter Bleach gave a graphic account of “goonda raj” in Kolkata’s jails. He recalled how he was beaten up, put through starvation and humiliated.

But the Danish Government’s Counsel, who is supposed to be helping India, did not bother to cross-examine Bleach. Nor did they spend any time with Peter Haestrup, who emerged from the shadows for the first time since 1995, to turn the CBI’s case completely on its head by admitting that he, and not Davy, was the kingpin of PAD.

Ergo: the PAD mystery is about to get a burial. The legacy of this crime against the nation – by its own leaders, will doubtless persist.

sum · Post by **sum** » 07 Jun 2011 08:23

ramana wrote:Ak Vermaji on Need for reforms and the right way of doing it.

http://southasiaanalysis.org/papers44/paper4353.html

might be OT but in the book, "Kaoboys of RAW", B.Raman mentions that A.k.Verma was the most "hardline" RAW chief ever ( he kickstarted the covert ops division etc)and if only RG had not lost the election in 89 and A.K.Varma had been given 2 more years under him, Pakistan would not have existed in its present form and we wouldn't have had so many Indians killed by Paki mischief ( of course, its slowly reaching that stage again but only after causing infinite pain to India)

nits · Post by **nits** » 07 Jun 2011 17:05

Natgrid terror database will cover all citizens

The idea behind setting up a national intelligence grid or natgrid is to merge all the databases of individuals into one place so that it could be accessed by various intelligence agencies. In India there has never been a thoroughly compiled database of everyone. More often than not, after every terror strike we have found our law enforcement agencies groping in the dark.

Terrorism would not be a subject matter of one state alone and the database would be a national property without any jurisdiction, say security experts.Under this set-up, information about each person would be fed into the database, including credit card details, residential proof, immigration details, bank accounts, fingerprints, property and education details.The natgrid would not only comprise information about people under the scanner, but would cover every citizen of India.

wig · Post by **wig** » 08 Jun 2011 09:25

a distinguished soldier writes a thought provoking article," India can’t do a ‘Geronimo’ There are major fault-lines" by Lieut-Gen Harwant Singh (retd)

Consequent to American operation ‘Geronimo,’ at Abbottabad in Pakistan to eliminate Osama bin Laden, many in civil society have been asking whether India can go ahead with a similar operation. ‘Geronimo’ involved painstaking intelligence work spread over many years, though the final ‘fine- tuning’ took seven months or so. Detailed intelligence work and application of cutting edge technology apart, it required an enormous amount of co-ordination among those in the higher echelons of the civil administration and military high command as well as with the one who was to control the mission. The entire planning was closely monitored by the Chiefs of Defence Staff, the CIA chief and the President himself, who is also the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces.

For months they worked on the plan, disseminating information strictly following the principle, ‘need to know’. A mock-up of the ‘Osama house’ would have been erected and an operation rehearsed a number of times by the designated team of helicopter crews and Seals, and the latter had otherwise been undergoing one of the most vigorous training schedules. Only then was it possible to complete the mission with clock-work precision. It was the President who had to take the final call and gave written orders.

Since intelligence is the most essential input for such an operation, can Indian intelligence agencies measure up to this basic requirement? Weaknesses of Indian intelligence have repeatedly surprised the nation, be it the Chinese road across Ladakh, the scale of aggression in 1962, and mass infiltration in 1965 in J and K followed by the attack in Chamb-Jorian. Kargil was a major intelligence failure and so was the attack on Parliament where there were security lapses too. It was repeated at Mumbai, in spite of some early leads. More recent are the cases of lists of terrorists in Pakistan and the CBI team arriving in Copenhangen with an out-dated warrant of arrest. The list is endless.

Accurate and actionable intelligence is fundamental to the success of covert operations, whereas it remains our weakest point. In fact, in the case of Indian intelligence agencies, it is not the case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing but the little finger not knowing whom the index finger, of the same hand, is fingering?

At the national level we have the NSG, especially trained and equipped for such operations. At Mumbai these commandos first took too long to arrive and later too long to complete the operation. Equally, are the NSG commandos equal to the job? Just recall the visuals of a commando holding his weapon well above his head and firing at supposedly some terrorists! This visual was repeatedly shown on the American TV, where we saw the drama unfold. The NSG was commanded by an army officer, invariably an ex-commando, but now it is a police officer with no ground-level experience of commando operations. Grabbing jobs, irrespective of the suitability of the appointee, is another feature of Indian setting.

There was no centralised control over the operation and the entire scene around Taj Hotel appeared one of a ‘circus,’ with apparently no one knowing what to do. The details of ammunition and grenades expended by the commandos in this action would give an idea of the operation and our suspicion of possible collateral damage.

Both the Indian Navy and the Indian Army have special forces which can carry out missions of the type conducted by the US naval Seals at Abbottabad. They are organised and trained for such missions and have the best of leadership. Quality of intelligence inputs apart, it is the joint operations where more than one service is to take part and then problems arise. There are major fault-lines in the field of coordination and meshing together of various aspects of such an operation between the two Services taking part in the operation. This lack of ‘joint-ship’ has been the bane of Indian defence forces, which essentially is the handiwork of the politic-bureaucratic combine. The policy of ‘divide and rule’, and ‘turf-tending’ over national interest has been the dominant feature of the Indian defence apparatus.

In the case of the Abbattobad raid, in spite of the complete integration of the defence forces in the United States, the Naval Seals had their own helicopters to ensure total involvement and commitment of those taking part in the operation. In the case of India, helicopters meant for carrying such troops are with the Indian Air Force rather than the Army! So, the total commitment required on the part of all those taking part in the operation will not measure up to the level required in an operation of the type conducted at Abbottabad. In fact, discord has often appeared when two Services had to operate together. It surfaced in rather an ugly form during the Kargil operations.

In the Indian political setting, a clear direction and the will to go for the kill will continue to be lacking. At Kargil, troops were told to carry out a ‘hot pursuit,’ but were forbidden to cross the Line of Control. This is when Pakistan had violated, on a very wide front and to great depth, India’s territorial integrity and the situation called for and justified a befitting response. However, India’s timid and inappropriate reaction resulted in frontal attacks up those impossible slopes, with avoidable casualties. Pakistan suffered no punishment for its blatant act of aggression. Consequent to attack on Indian Parliament, ‘Operation Parakaram’ kept the troops in their battle locations for months and ended in a fiasco. Indian reaction to these two incidents conveyed to Pakistan that it can take liberties with India and the latter carries no deterrence for the former. At the same time, it demonstrated that Indian political leadership will never have the stomach to order an operation of the ‘Geronimo’ type, no matter how provocative the action of the other country may be.

Civil society has suddenly woken up and is now seeking answers to searching questions on these issues, having closed its eyes and switched off its mind to national security issues all these decades. The inescapable fact is that the full potential of various components of the defence forces just cannot be realised without adopting the concepts of Chiefs of Defence Staff and “Theater Commands” along with the integration of the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and Services headquarters on the lines of the Pentagon. What has currently been carried out by way of amalgamation of Defence Headquarters with the MoD is a joke and a fraud on the nation. Yet civil society has remained a silent spectator. The Arun Singh Committee Report continues to gather dust, as it stands consigned to the archives of the Indian government.

Besides the above fault-lines in the Indian security establishment, it is the watertight compartments in which various organs of the state work. Foreign policy is evolved and practised in isolation of national security considerations and consultations. Intelligence agencies are never made accountable and have inadequate interaction with the defence Services.

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2011/20110608/edit.htm#4

it is sad that even in this day and age our Intelligence agencies are never made accountable and have inadequate interaction with the defence Services

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 08 Jun 2011 19:41

Wig he points to a range of factors of which Intelligence is only one aspect.
I also think the govt is unaware of the threat it faces and hence the continued half measures. The govt is not a national govt but a holding operation.

VinodTK · Post by **VinodTK** » 09 Jun 2011 05:38

Himalayan task ahead

Unlike China, India has shied away from laying down markers in the belief that what is left unsaid cannot provoke a confrontation — exactly the opposite tack to that taken by Beijing, which is that what is not pinned down can be expropriated by others. In a dog-eat-dog world of international affairs — that Indian policymakers pigheadedly refuse to acknowledge — no prizes for guessing which attitude is a liability.
:
But when India has no mountain divisions for offensive warfare on the Tibetan plateau worth the name and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) can marshal as many as 28-35 divisions inside of a month, courtesy the Qinghai-Lhasa railway connecting the Chinese mainland with its western periphery, then we have a problem. We need a minimum of nine offensive mountain divisions — stalwart commanders deem 13-14 such divisions as barely adequate for the mission of credibly fighting the Chinese PLA on their ground.

According to the general officer commanding one of the two new Army divisions expressly raised for offensive operations in the mountains, his formation is at present reduced to “protecting newly built border roads”. What is the guarantee that these minimal additions to the extant force, or even the full complement of 9-14 mountain divisions, equipped with light howtizers, light tanks and assault helicopters whenever these are obtained, will actually be deployed for aggressive action against China, rather than as a strong backup for the defensively arrayed formations along the border, given that the Indian armed services as a whole have, over the years, grown as passive-defensive and risk-averse as the Indian government?

chetak · Post by **chetak** » 10 Jun 2011 10:09

http://www.dailypioneer.com/344830/PMO- ... -deal.html

PMO initiates probe into shoddy NTRO UAV deal
June 10, 2011 10:46:29 AM

J Gopikrishnan | New Delhi

With yet another scam threatening to rock the UPA Government, the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) has finally initiated an inquiry, following the CAG report, into irregularity in the purchase of Rs 450 crore worth Unmanned Ariel Vehicles (UAV) by National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO).

Sources said the PMO took the action after CAG submitted its report on the functioning of the technical intelligence wing of NTRO, which works directly under the National Security Advisor. However, according to highly placed sources, the PMO is yet to decide whether to table the CAG report in Parliament. The report was submitted to the President in the second week of February.

Sources told The Pioneer that the PMO had asked NTRO to explain the manipulation of the approval of Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) in the purchase UAVs, which are presently defunct.

Sources said following the PMO’s directive, the NTRO summoned its former officials who were engaged in the dubious purchase of UAVs in 2007 from Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI).

Among those summoned by NTRO are some Major Generals, who were on deputation to the organisation, as well some senior finance officials, sources said. “These officials were directly involved in the purchase of UAV,” sources said.

According to sources, a section in the Government is trying to scuttle the tabling of the CAG report in Parliament citing that it was marked “top secret”. But CAG officials claim that any of their reports submitted to the President has to be ultimately tabled in Parliament and sent to the Public Accounts Committee.

In 2007, the CCS had approved Rs 300 crore for the purchase of UAVs, but NTRO’s top brass spent additional Rs 150 crore for purchase of satellite link and electronic intelligence link from Israeli vendors.

The NTRO chairman is empowered to make payment up to Rs 20 crore without any approval from the top. But the NTRO chief circumvented the rules by incurring the additional expenses of Rs 150 crore in several installment below Rs 20 crore. The CAG report indicted former NTRO chairman KVSS Prasada Rao and current advisor MS Vijayaragavan for this misdeed.

In its damaging report on NTRO, the sensitive organisation under the Prime Minister, the CAG exposed that the UAV machines provided by the Israeli vendors had become non-functional. The satellite link purchased was not at all meant for dedicated transmission, as it was an open mode of transmission and any body could download the sensitive data sent from UAVs. Later the network regulator, under the department of telecom had shot down the usage of these UAVs due to the absence of a dedicated satellite link, said sources. The entire UAVs are now grounded.

The CAG report says that it was shocking to note that the NTRO’s top brass had accepted the claim of the Israeli vendors that the “satellite link was successfully tested in Australia.”

MK Narayanan was the National Security Advisor (NSA) when NTRO executed this dubious deal.

This is the first time CAG conducted the audit of an intelligence agency. On complaints from whistleblowers, the CAG decided to undertake the audit in December 2009 even though it was vehemently opposed by Narayanan. After the Prime Minister overruled Narayanan’s objections, the CAG started the audit in January 2010.

wig · Post by **wig** » 11 Jun 2011 16:00

The Sino-Pak nexus -Learn from China’s strategic thinking by Gen (retd) V. P. Malik

It is often stated that at the strategic level, one requires a long memory and a longer foresight and vision. There are many people in India who have a tendency to overlook the Sino-Pak strategic nexus in the dialogue over India’s boundaries with these two countries. Boundaries are a manifestation of national identity. Disputed boundaries are often trip-wires of war.

It is, therefore, necessary to place this issue in its historical and futuristic perspective.

Soon after its Independence in 1949, China set out consolidating its historic frontiers and placing administrative authority and military boots on the ground in Tibet and Xinjiang. India did not do so and rues till date this Himalayan blunder in strategic terms. India’s northern boundary from the Sino-India-Afghanistan tri-junction to the Sino-India-Nepal tri-junction on the maps remained marked with the legend ‘Boundary Undefined’ till 1954. No serious attempt was made to establish administrative authority or place military boots on the ground in this area.

On July 1, 1954, Nehru ordered, “All old maps dealing with the frontier should be… withdrawn… new maps should not state there is any undemarcated territory… this frontier should be considered a firm and definite one which is not open to discussion with anybody.” By then, China had placed its military boots in Tibet and Aksai Chin and started the construction of a strategic road connecting Tibet to Xinjiang (China National Highway 219). Construction of this strategic road, started in 1951 but not noticed by India till 1955, was completed in 1957. It was seen in the Chinese maps published in 1958.

Nehru tried to justify the loss of Aksai Chin by calling it ‘a desolate area where not a blade of grass grows’. Nevertheless, it became one of the triggers for the Sino-Indian war of 1962.

Soon after the war, China began Xinjiang boundary negotiations with Pakistan. This was a period when both China and Pakistan were upset over the post 1962 war US military assistance to India. They signed the Sino-Pakistan Border Agreement in 1963 in which Pakistan ceded Shaqsgam Valley of the Northern Areas (J&K territory, under occupation of Pakistan) to China. This agreement described the eastern termination of the Sino-Pakistan boundary at Karakoram Pass. Pakistan promptly delineated NJ 9842 on the Soltoro Range towards the North East to Karakoram Pass, ignoring “thence north to the glaciers” statement of the 1948 Karachi Agreement between India and Pakistan. The result: Karakoram Pass, till then on the boundary between India and China, now had a third party access and claimant.

China maintained a studied silence over the Pakistani cartographic manipulation. It continued to show the area north of Karakoram Pass as being under China. Meanwhile, Pakistan and China started building the Karakoram Highway, linking Xinjiang to Pakistan through the northern areas.

Pakistan’s cartographic manipulation was followed up in international mountaineering journals and Western atlases. It started sending civil and military mountaineering expeditions to the mountain peaks and glaciers in this area.

It would be noted that the Chinese were willing to negotiate and settle the boundary issue of J&K (west of Karakoram Pass) with Pakistan. But they have refused to discuss that boundary with India on the ground of its being ‘disputed’. That ‘dispute’ did not come in the way of their negotiations with Pakistan.

In April 1984, India reacted to these developments and intelligence reports about Pakistan Army plans to deploy troops in the Siachen glacier area by occupying the Soltoro Ridge (now called the Actual Ground Position Line or AGPL) to secure the glacier and the territory to its east. This deployment (a) dominates Pakistani positions in the valley west of Soltoro Ridge (b) blocks infiltration possibilities across the Soltoro Ridge passes into Ladakh (c) prevents Pakistani military adventurism in Turtuk and areas to its south. Its northernmost position at Indira Col overlooks the Shaqsgam Valley, illegally ceded by Pakistan to China, and denies Pakistani access to Karakoram Pass and beyond that to Aksai Chin.

In 1987, China and Pakistan signed the protocol to formalise the demarcation of their boundary. Its termination at Karakoram Pass and Pakistani recognition of Chinese sovereignty over Aksai Chin clearly indicated an understanding between them. In the late 1980s, China started assisting Pakistan on the development of nuclear weapons, long-range missiles and in large-scale sale of conventional weapons and equipment.

In 1997, China agreed to send its military commander opposite Ladakh to meet his India counterpart in Leh as a confidence-building measure. Near the date, it was proposed that the meeting be held in New Delhi instead of Leh. It had to be called off. After the Kargil war, military attaches from all countries except Pakistan were invited for a conducted tour of the battle zone. The Chinese attaché declined that invitation.

Three years ago, China started issuing “stapled visas” to visitors from J&K, thus bringing into question its status as part of India. It refused a visa to the GOC-in-C, Northern Command, who was to make an official visit to China as a part of ongoing military-level exchanges. It has now increased its civil and military presence in the northern areas, purportedly to improve infrastructure there. Among the infrastructure reconstruction projects to be given priority are those related to the repair and upgradation of the Karakoram Highway, which was damaged in 2009. China also plans to construct railway tracks and oil pipelines from Kashgar in Xinjiang to Gwadar port in Pakistan.

In December 2010, while addressing a joint session of the Pakistan parliament, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao stated: “To cement and advance the all-weather strategic partnership of cooperation between China and Pakistan is our common strategic choice…The two neighbouring countries are brothers forever. China-Pakistan friendship is full of vigour and vitality, like a lush tree with deep roots and thick foliage. China-Pakistan relationship is strong and solid, like a rock standing firm despite the passage of time.”

Recently, India and Pakistan resumed talks over the Siachen glacier issue. As in the past, Pakistan refuses to authenticate the AGPL and the existing troops’ positions and demands the Indian troops’ withdrawal to the pre-1972 position i.e. to the east of the line joining NJ 9842 and Karakoram Pass. Pakistan had formally authenticated the line of control in 1949 and 1972 but has consistently refused this position. The strategic consequences of a deal without such a formal authentication are obvious. Besides, it will re-introduce China into the end game because of its illegal control over the Shaqsgam Valley.

Without formal authentication of the AGPL, how does one detect any future encroachment into this area? It must be stated categorically that no amount of existing technology can have fool-proof surveillance and capability to detect small-scale infiltration, which is sufficient to hold and defend a tactical feature in this terrain. Can India afford to forego the strategic significance of the Soltoro position due to the financial cost-benefit ratio analyses? Or because not a blade of grass grows in the area? (Then why put up the Indian flag at Gangotri in South Pole?) Can India trust Pakistan to the extent of foregoing formal authentication of the AGPL after what Gen Pervez Musharraf did across the formally delineated LoC in Kargil? Our negotiators must keep all these points in mind in their discussions with Pakistani counterparts.

In his latest book On China, Henry Kissinger states that China’s strategy generally exhibits three characteristics: meticulous analysis of long-term trends, careful study of tactical options and detached exploration of operational decisions”. He describes the Chinese style of dealing with strategic decisions as “thorough analysis, careful preparations, attention to psychological and political factors, quest for surprise, and rapid conclusion.” There is much that our political leaders and officials can learn from China’s strategic thinking.

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2011/20110611/edit.htm#4

dinakar · Post by **dinakar** » 16 Jun 2011 07:43

link

India has done some intelligence sharing with the SCO on radical Islamist networks but this has not evolved to real time transmission of information about terrorist incidents or movements. “Most countries normally hesitate to share intelligence till they have developed a level of trust. We should aim for a situation like where 15 Taliban fighters cross over to Tajikistan and this information is immediately given to Dushanbe helping the authorities nab them. That is our goal,'' said the sources.

When does this happened? Is there any other news about this intelligence sharing..

Vashishtha · Post by **Vashishtha** » 18 Jun 2011 19:01

Interesting find... Indira Gandhi's connections with the KGB and employment of paranoia politics...
http://www.dailypioneer.com/346673/The- ... anoia.html

Nikhil T · Post by **Nikhil T** » 21 Jun 2011 08:55

Stunning :

Pranab wrote to PM about security breach in North Block

New Delhi: A startling revelation has come to fore that Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee had written to the Prime Minister about a possible security breach in his North Block office.

According to an investigation done by The Indian Express, on September 7 last year, Pranab Mukherjee wrote to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh asking him to order a "secret inquiry" into what he called a "serious breach of security" in his office - the presence of "planted adhesives" in 16 key locations that suggested a possible surveillance attempt.

These locations included the office of the Finance Minister himself, the office of his adviser, the office of his Private Secretary, and two conference rooms used by the Finance Minister.

In his letter, Mukherjee, however, mentioned that no "live microphone" or recording devices were found.

The Indian Express reports that Mr Mukherjee's letter came three days after an unprecedented "electronic sweep" of the Ministry's VVIP chambers was conducted by a team of private investigators brought in by the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT).

After an investigation, the Intelligence Bureau (IB) reported that the adhesives were sort of "chewing gum" but in contrast, the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) said the tiny devices that were pasted, and then pulled out.

Read more at: http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/prana ... -113654?cp

sum · Post by **sum** » 21 Jun 2011 22:07

The Indian Express reports that Mr Mukherjee's letter came three days after an unprecedented "electronic sweep" of the Ministry's VVIP chambers was conducted by a team of private investigators brought in by the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT).

Errr, shouldn't IB counter-intel be doing this job or is the IB suspected to be penetrated?

How are the private guys trusted this much to be given a free hand in sensitive access areas?

PS: The IB seems have done some sweeping and concluded :

After an investigation, the Intelligence Bureau (IB) reported that the adhesives were sort of "chewing gum" but in contrast, the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) said the tiny devices that were pasted, and then pulled out.

Chewing gum in 16 locations? No wonder the CBDT turned to the private spooks!!!

Raghavendra · Post by **Raghavendra** » 21 Jun 2011 22:24

^Wanted to say something about IB but being in danger of qadrification wont

AdityaM · Post by **AdityaM** » 21 Jun 2011 22:36

Why wasn't the chewing gum tested for Saliva DNA?

The thread title is misleading!
in this country there is neither any Intelligence nor any National Security

Shrinivasan · Post by **Shrinivasan** » 23 Jun 2011 11:54

Here is the fixed version of the Annual report 2011, Ministry of Defense, Govt Of India. MOD has still not fixed the file.
Interested Rakshaks can look it up at
http://www.scribd.com/doc/58526113/Annu ... ence-India

Enjoy!!!

Austin · Post by **Austin** » 23 Jun 2011 12:39

There was this discussion on Times Now 2 days dack where ex Cabinet Sec and a RAW official were discussing the MOF issue , the RAW officer mentioned that during the period when Chinese hacker penetrated into our system on a larger scale a lot of confidential information was lost and the GOI just choose to hide what was lost.

He mentioned that was the worst hacking attempt we ever faced.

shyamd · Post by **shyamd** » 24 Jun 2011 02:01

The IB take on the bugging of Pranab office

The bugging of Pranab Mukherjee’s office continues to be a murky affair. The Intelligence Bureau has dismissed the incident and even stated that those were not equipments but chewing gum in the office of the finance minister.
The question then would be, if there was really nothing in it, then why did the Finance Minister even write a letter to the Prime Minister seeking his intervention into the matter.
The obvious questions that come to mind are, was it corporate espionage, was it an insider job or was it a result of the running feud between two ministries in the government? It is a known fact that any agency that needs to bug a person or even taps his or her calls needs to get an approval from the Home Ministry. This again leads to another question as to why was this matter not referred to the Home Ministry first and why was the Prime Minister appraised of this first.
While these are aspects that may never come out in the public domain another question that needs to be asked if it is that simple to walk into a finance ministers office and bug it?
The details that are emerging from the probe into this matter appear to be murky. Was someone who is a rival of the Finance Minister trying to listen in to the conversation? Was there a corporate espionage into the matter since these persons are the ones who stand to gain most from the discussions within the finance ministry? Was it someone from the CBTD who was doing this for additional information and passing it on to either the corporates or the rival ministry?
Sources in the intelligence bureau make it clear that there is nothing much to this incident and it looks like mischief. It is not easy to gain access into the office of the Finance Ministry and then bug it. It looks like a case of mischief to us, the sources also added.
Placing a bug in the office is not a difficult task. An expert who can gain entry into the office can place one in less than 10 seconds. The bugs are normally placed near laptops, telephones and even under a table. A double sided tape is normally used to place these bugs and these equipments are extremely small and not easily visible to the naked eye. The capability of these bugs vary and depending on the capacity these bugs could be placed to listen into between 20 days to 10 years also.
In the instant case on hand it appears that it was a shoddy job done at the end. Chewing gum is something that could not have stayed stuck for such a long time since it does tend to fall off when it becomes dry. It appears that the person whoever has placed these bugs took them out in a hurry leaving the adhesive behind.
Bugging falls under the purview of the laws relating to tapping. The Finance Ministry has three wings under it- the DRI, ED and the CBDT. All these three agencies have the power to carry out arrests which would mean investigating powers. This would automatically mean that they do have the power to bug or tap calls of any person. Hence these three agencies which have access to the Finance Minister’s office also have the knowledge of placing bugs. However the law is clear and no agency cannot tap another persons conversation unless and until a certain procedure is followed.
In the PUCL vs Union of India the Supreme Court had said that a telephonic conversation in private without interference would come under the purview of the right to privacy as specified by the Indian Constitution.
Further the court also held that the Home Secretary of India or the State Government has to issue an order authorizing that the phone can be tapped. However the decision to tap a phone has to be reviewed by the cabinet, law and telecommunication secretary. Such an order needs to be reviewed in two months failing which fresh orders need to be passed.
Such an order shall be in force only for two months unless there is another order, which will give the home secretary the right to extend it by another six months only.
Strong reasons have to be specified in order to issue such a directive.
Records relating to phone tapping should be used and destroyed within two months. The order, which will be passed by the home secretary, shall be specific in nature. The invasion of privacy shall be minimum in nature and the reasons should be strong before an order is passed failing which such an order can be subject to a court review.
Experts are of the view that going by the guidelines of the Supreme Court it is highly unlikely that any of these agencies may have been given persmission to tap or bug are the Intelligence Bureau, the Research and Analysis Wing and the Central Bureau of Investigation. The other question that crops us is access to the Finance Minister’s office. The persons who could have got easy access to this office are the ones who are under this ministry. The other possibility is whether the other agencies under the Home Department could have staged such an exercise. The bigger question now is, with the Finance Minister himself chosing to downplay the incident will the actual truth ever come out

VinodTK · Post by **VinodTK** » 26 Jun 2011 06:45

The Naresh Chandra Task Force on National Security: A Timely Step

According to media reports, the government has set up a task force of experts under Mr. Naresh Chandra, the former cabinet secretary, to review national security against the backdrop of a rapidly changing international security environment and fresh challenges to India’s security. This is a welcome and much needed step.

shyamd · Post by **shyamd** » 26 Jun 2011 18:27

When spies connect the dots

* June 26, 2011
* By S. Raghotham

When spies connect the dots

Bin Laden is dead, Pakistan is going after terrorists, howsoever reluctantly, there hasn’t been a major terrorist attack in India since 26/11, and India is talking peace with its perfidious neighbour. Is terrorism dead, or has it at least lost its deadly sting?

No, says Raghu Raman, an ex-Army captain. In fact, we must reconcile ourselves to an intensification of terrorist activity over the next several years. There is a simple reason for this, he says: Resources are decreasing, contenders are increasing; and, between the contenders, there are strong ones and there are weak ones. It is natural that the weak will use terror as an instrument against the strong. “Terrorism and terrorists aren’t going away any time soon.”

Raman’s is an important voice. He is the CEO of NatGrid, Home minister P. Chidambaram’s project to ensure better information-sharing between intelligence agencies in the fight against terrorism. It’s a project “to assure terrorists and their associates that they can no longer get away, that they can be certain they will be caught”. That, Raman says, would be a big deterrent.

So, what exactly is NatGrid?

Pakistan-sponsored anti-India terrorism started around 1989. Since then, thousands of Indian civilians and security forces have died in terrorist attacks. The November 2008 Mumbai attacks were only the most recent and biggest of them all. Yet, through these years, all that India has done is to deploy ever more conventional army troops in J&K to fight an unconventional enemy. This did not change even through the 1990s and 2000s when the terrorists marched ahead in using sophisticated methods and technologies such as satellite phones, mobile phones, email and Internet chat rooms to reconnoiter prize targets (think the Parliament building, the Akshardham temple, the Taj and Oberoi hotels in Mumbai), meticulously plan ever bigger attacks, draw funding electronically from around the world and carry out their dastardly acts. They did leave trails, but there was no one looking, at least not at the whole trail. India and Indian intelligence agencies continued to view terrorism as a hail of bullets or bombs going off somewhere. Needless to say, Indian Intelligence became a saga of failure, once too often.

It was not because the Intelligence agencies and spooks are dumb. Far from it. In several cases, one agency or the other — between RAW, IB, Military Intelligence, police intelligence organisations — had clues about an impending attack. Sometimes, they had a name, sometimes they knew someone was coming by a particular route. But there it got stuck. By their very nature, Intelligence alerts, especially when much of it is human intelligence, is almost always incomplete and not actionable.

To make matters worse, Intelligence agencies are not the best of friends with each other, they seldom share information willingly and with alacrity. Even when they do, the formal, manual method of alerting, raising queries and getting answers through the Dak, collating information, connecting the dots, understanding what terrorists are planning, and moving in to prevent them almost guarantees ‘Intelligence failure’.

“Real-time Intelligence sharing is impossible. It’s all post-facto. The system often has all the information it needs, but the right person/agency cannot get it at the right time”, Raman says.

The 26/11 Mumbai attacks exposed this reality starkly. India’s external intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), had intercepted satellite phone calls at sea days before the ten terrorists landed in Mumbai; airline databases had data that David Headley, the man who conducted reconnaissance of the 26/11 targets, had come into India and gone to Pakistan from here several times; calls had been traced to Pakistan-based men and entities. Yet, no one Intelligence agency had all this information. None could connect the dots because the dots were in disparate databases in different agencies that did not readily share information.

NatGrid, as Raghu Raman has conceived it, is a technology tool or platform that acts as an information exchange between Intelligence agencies. Its sole purpose is anti-terrorism, and it seeks to achieve it by automating the exchange of information between Intelligence agencies. “NatGrid provides the framework to allow authorised user agencies to get contextual information from data sources which already provide information to law enforcement agencies any way”, Raman says. “There is nothing new happening here. A manual process is being automated”.

The “authorised agencies” include the Intelligence Bureau, CBI, the National Intelligence Agency, the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence and others. The 21 “data sources” include the databases of banks, telcos, ISPs, immigration control, driving licence departments, the railways, National Crime Records Bureau, SEBI, and data on PAN cards and DIN (director identification number), besides those of the user agencies themselves.

When NatGrid begins to function, some 18 months from now, Intelligence agencies and their spooks can query it about suspects, their bank accounts, their travel histories, their call, email and SMS details, etc. NatGrid will route the query to the agency and database that is most likely to have the answer, and the questioner will get back his reply in near real-time.

India’s NatGrid, of course, is not the only such tool. Post-9/11 in the US, several countries have put in place programmes that go far beyond merely automating existing Intelligence-sharing processes. The US National Security Agency, for instance, started a controversial domestic spying programme that tracks and stores details of every American resident’s every call, email, SMS, etc. Britain is putting in place an Interception Modernisation Programme, akin to the NSA programme. NatGrid, in comparison, is merely a ‘starter pack’.

Still, it has raised concerns that it could lead to invasion of privacy, misuse of information about citizens, data breaches and the like. Scary epithets have been used to describe NatGrid: ‘Big Brother’, ‘Nanny State’, ‘Surveillance State”, and the like.

To be sure, as this correspondent found out, much of the concern has risen because NatGrid is a much-misunderstood concept. Activists ranging against it commonly seem to think that NatGrid “is an agency similar to the US National Security Agency, which can gather information from various agencies, conducts its own electronic spying programmes, collates large amounts of information on every citizen and analyses it all”. That “once the NatGrid becomes functional, some spook in government will know what I am doing at any moment. Intelligence agencies will know each time I swipe my credit card, they will know each time I am flying, all my personal and financial information will all be available in one place, and who knows what a rogue spook can do with it!”

While some of that may be outlandish and alarmist, given that NatGrid, in its current configuration, is a tool, not an organization, and does not collect, collate, store or anal-yse any information, concerns may still be valid in a country where “chewing gum” can be found stuck in 16 places in the office of its Finance minister. “Chewing gum” with ears are a hazard.

Says Rahul Matthan, a partner at Bengaluru-based law firm Trilegal Services who has been engaged with the evolution of a privacy law, “Right now, I have got an artificial protection against all my information being available in one place because of the slow inter-agency process. When NatGrid connects all of those agencies and databases, however, that protection goes away. If NatGrid or its users violate my privacy, where do I go (for redressal)?”

Raman, however, says these concerns are unfounded, that NatGrid will actually make Intelligence agencies more accountable.

“Firstly, already today, police can get any information they want from, say, a telecom service provider or a bank for any reason. With NatGrid, every query has to be terror-related; second, every query is logged and an audit committee will look into the log analysis of queries periodically. So, if there’s a sub-inspector showing too much interest in someone, the audit committee will want to know what the SI is after. There’s no way anyone is going to get away with misusing NatGrid against citizens, unless everyone involved from top to bottom is in cahoots to do so. What are the chances of that happening?”
Still, there may be reasons to worry. For one, NatGrid is not a Parliament-legislated entity, but one that will exist on the basis of a government notification. Its currently limited mandate can be expanded at any time by merely another government notification, without going through the deliberative process of Parliament.

Two, in countries such as the US and UK, there are strong privacy laws that give citizens recourse if government agencies misuse personal information, but no such privacy law exists in India. Matthan suggests, “Privacy provisions must be built into the NatGrid mandate. Else, there must be a generic privacy legislation with NatGrid under it, (which means) its user agencies, such as RAW and IB, must be brought under such a law.”

Big Brother? May be not. Open to misuse? As any tool would be.

* * *
Agencies that will have access to Natgrid
1. Directorate of Revenue Intelligence
2. Intelligence Bureau
3. Research and Analysis Wing
4. Directorate General of Central Excise Intelligence
5. Central Bureau of Investigation
6. Financial Intelligence Unit
7. Central Board of Direct Taxes
8. Central Board of Excise & Customs
9. Narcotics Control Bureau
10. Enforcement Directorate

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 26 Jun 2011 18:55

The chance of Tsunami or water borne security risks tops any environmental related security planning. The data for this is already available for us, although the scale is minimal.

I foresee unconventional security risks exceeding conventional military risks in the next decade onwards, and it would be really important for us to do something about this in our NSD agenda.

VinodTK · Post by **VinodTK** » 28 Jun 2011 05:36

India to up defences in Andamans, Lakshadweep

:
"The plans, approved at a meeting of the armed forces with the national security adviser's office last month, involves significant enhancement of military infrastructure and force accretion in both the Andaman and Nicobar and Lakshadweep chains," the official said on condition of anonymity.
:
Among the approvals obtained are upgrading the Andaman and Nicobar Islands as an amphibious warfare training hub, as also increasing the army's force levels to more than a brigade, the official said.

The naval air bases at Port Blair and the air force base in Car Nicobar too will be upgraded to facilitate fighter jet, helicopter and heavy transport plane operations.

The Indian Air Force (IAF) has already tried out its potent frontline Sukhoi SU-30 fighter jets from air bases in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

The Shibpur airstrip in north Andamans will be extended from 3,200 feet to 12,000 feet to support all types of aircraft and night-flying operations.

The navy and air force bases in both the island chains will also deploy unmanned aerial vehicles, to augment surveillance alongside the radar chains.
:
The navy and air force bases in both the island chains will also deploy unmanned aerial vehicles, to augment surveillance alongside the radar chains.

The IAF chief, Air Chief Marshal P.V. Naik, when asked about the force accretion plans, said: "Of course, we are (going to do it). But it will happen in a planned manner. It is not immediate, but over the next two or three (five-year) plans."

The navy, on its part, will scale up the jetties at Diglipur in north Andamans, Kamorta in south Andamans and Campbell Bay in Car Nicobar into "operational turn-around bases" with better refuelling and communication facilities, and more personnel.

It will also place more warships, including landing pontoon docks that aid amphibious warfare with capacity to carry combat troops and battle tanks, in the Andaman and Nicobar chain.

In Lakshadweep, the coast guard has already opened a district headquarters and operates a couple of stations. Now the navy plans to have a detachment in the island chain, which would be upgraded into a full-fledged base in the future with fast attack craft and interceptor boats.

The armed forces in the Lakshadweep will also act as deterrents to the Somali pirates operating around the island chain, particularly in the Nine Degree Channel and the Arabian Sea.

Shrinivasan · Post by **Shrinivasan** » 28 Jun 2011 12:01

China and not Pakistan is seen as India's main threat. the MOD has prepared a 15 year plan to address the Chinese threat...
http://www.ndtv.com/video/player/news/c ... eat/203704
Good going MOD