Intelligence & National Security Discussion

shyamd · Post by **shyamd** » 26 Jun 2012 13:49

There are 4 ongoing operations with KSA with IM/LeT members in the net

shyamd · Post by **shyamd** » 27 Jun 2012 00:58

This is heartening news! In Libya I am told that Unkil had an option of hacking into govt main frame and totally bringing the country to standstill but it was deemed to take too long to do - given the short time and the fact that Libyan defence was out in the open desert it was easier to use AF! This is the changing face of strategy and weapons!! We need to get ready.
As I said DIA will run our offensive operations with NTRO etc tasked for Defence.
India’s Cyber Security

Posted on June 4, 2012

By Syed Nazakat

The numbers tell the story: 9,01,19,369 Indian websites were hacked worldwide in the last three years. Of these, 544 were government sites, including those of the defence wings, ministries and diplomatic missions. In the first quarter of this year, 133 government websites were hacked. Officials do not know exactly what information was stolen, but they confirm that power, aviation, banking and defence communication sectors are the main targets. Not surprisingly, a recent survey by McAfee, the internet security giant, namedIndiaamong the nations least able to defend themselves against cyber attacks. Others on the list include Brazil,RomaniaandMexico.

Key websites hacked into include that of the Prime Minister’s Office, the National Security Adviser’s office, the defence ministry, air cargo customs (Mumbai), ministry of railways, National Institute of Social Defence, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India and the Central Bureau of Investigation. Most of these attacks originated fromChinaandPakistan.

MicrosoftIndia’s retail website, http://www.microsoftstore.co.in, was hacked on February 13 by an allegedly China-based group called the Evil Shadow Team. The same group is suspected of hacking into over 600 computers at the ministry of external affairs earlier.

They are also suspects in the 2011 hacker attack on the Indian diplomatic mission inParis. Hackers accessed the servers of the embassy and copied classified documents including a file on the high power committee on national civil aircraft development, led by G. Madhavan Nair. And, last week, unknown hackers breached the websites of the Supreme Court of India and the Congress party. In another attack, hackers sent a fake email to many journalists, in the name of the Army Headquarters. The mail had an attachment titled, ‘China’sTibetstrategy’.

“Hackers managed to penetrate even those computer systems which were not connected to the internet,” said a senior MEA official. “The sensitive and classified information was stolen and is out there in public domain. It was frustrating.”

National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon agreed that the security establishment was worried about the attacks on power, banking, railways and air traffic control segments. “Traditional deterrence hardly works in a battle-space like the cyber world, where operations and attacks occur almost at the speed of light,” Menon said at the release of the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses’s report on cyber security challenges inDelhilast week. “At these speeds there is a premium on attacking first.”

Hackers are, indeed, becoming more audacious and dangerous. Stuxnet, the malware once known to target only Siemens systems, is suspected to have infected theIndia’s nuclear programme network. Officials are investigating whetherIndia’s lone uranium enrichment facility, the Rare Materials Plant at Rattehalli, Karnataka, was infected with Stuxnet in November 2011. The RMP’s computers had malfunctioned at that time, but a senior government official who is aware of the incident told THE WEEK that the operating system at the plant was clean.

The Indian security establishment is now confused because the recent attacks have come from all over the world. Over the last three years, attacks were made from the US, Mexico, Spain, Brazil, Lebanon, Peru, Morocco, Japan, Korea, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Nigeria, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan and China.

Officials familiar with several such investigations say the actual attacker is rarely identified or traced because hackers use third-party protocols as fronts to launch an attack. They direct the information stored on the victim’s computer towards a secret website that serves as a drop box, from where the information can be recovered.

Hackers scour the web studying public documents, chatrooms and blogs to build digital dossiers about the jobs, responsibilities and personal networks of targets. Once a target has been chosen, the hackers will then start the process of breaking in and gaining the control. The email address is made to look like it comes from a logical sender.

For example, a few days after North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il died, hackers sent out mails with a malicious attachment named ‘brief_introduction_of_kim_jong_III_pdf.pdf’. Had the host computers opened the attachment or clicked on the link, the malware would have stolen passwords and sent the data to a foreign server. The most common cyber attack inIndiais made through bots, short for robots, which are autonomous programmes that can interact with computer systems or users. Bots let the hacker take control of computers and steal information. Bots also route unnecessary traffic to the victim computer, overloading it and causing it to crash, in what is known as a “denial of service” attack.

The Computer Emergency Response Team-India (CERT-IN), an apex government agency handling cyber security concerns, traced over 68 lakh bot-affected affected computers in the country in 2010. “The nightmarish scenario for us is that hackers could disrupt or shut down critical infrastructure like aviation,” said an official at CERT-IN. “A cyber attack on essential sectors could easily push the country to the brink.”

Home Minister P. Chidambaram told reporters inDelhilast week that no one was immune to cyber crimes and attacks. “I think all that we have done to protect the infrastructure in the physical space seems to be a lighter task than when we face threats that have been outlined in the cyber space,” he said. To combat cyber attacks, the government is working on a comprehensive plan.

At the National Security Council Secretariat (NSCS), which is headed by the NSA, security and intelligence officials and cyber experts are reviewingIndia’s strategy for dealing with cyber threats. Menon said the plan was to prepare a cyber security architecture wholly controlled by the government. He said, “The government is in the process of putting in place the capabilities and the systems in India that will enable us to deal with this anarchic new world of constant and undeclared cyber threat, attack, counter-attack and defence.”

The aim of the new plan is to establish a National Cyber Coordination Centre (NCCC), a single window to deal with cyber attacks. Under it, a National Threat Intelligence Centre with multi-stakeholder, real-time, command-and-control centres countrywide will monitor critical infrastructure. “It [NCCC] would scan cyber traffic within the country, flowing at the point of entry and exit, including international gateways,” said a top official of the NSCS. “This will markIndia’s first major effort to arm itself in the war against cyber attacks.”

On top of the NCCC, there is a clear delineation of responsibilities of CERT-IN, National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO), Intelligence Bureau, Military Intelligence and other agencies that have a role in fighting cyber intrusions. Officials say that even where there are overlaps, protocol will be laid out to effectively deal with the cyber threat.

The proposed cyber security plan will also bring in expertise from the departments of telecom and information technology and National Informatics Centre (NIC). The NIC, which provides cyber security related services to ministries, and CERT-IN are strengthening their capability, too. “We are building a system to identify threats and vulnerable targets. This is a massive task,” said a CERT-IN official. “Our responsibility lies between proactive and reactive roles.”

The establishment of proposed NCCC and a greater role for NIC and CERT-IN will fill a wide gap in the cyber security system. At present, there is no centralised protocol to deal with cyber threats and attacks. Though the government has formulated a Crisis Management Plan for countering cyber attacks and cyber terrorism, it is in a mess.

Under the CMP, each state is responsible for its own cyber security. But states like Haryana, Bihar, Jammu & Kashmir, Jharkhand, Mizoram,Nagaland,Sikkimand Tripura do not have a protocol to register cyber attacks, leave alone countering them.

At the Centre, too, there is no data available about the number of hacking attempts made on the government websites in the last decade. Officials in the cyber security establishment also point out that despiteIndiabeing an IT hub, more than 50 per cent of hardware is imported.

“We are vulnerable today because in the case of all our electronic infrastructure, whether it is the internet, local net, military communication systems or radars, 90 per cent of it is imported components,” said V.K. Saraswat, chief of Defence Research and Development Organisation. “Even the internet network works on imported servers and routers. There is a chance of these devices being provided with bugs and malware. At any point these bugs can be activated.”

The DRDO has appointed a team of scientists and cyber experts to identify the critical infrastructure sites and networks prone to cyber attacks. It is also planning to develop indigenous servers, routers and operating systems. Saraswat said the DRDO’s challenge was first to secure its own operating system and communication functions. “We built our own network [Drona]. There has not been a single attack on Drona, [but] if people do not exercise discipline and, for example, use pen drives [between the systems], then they are making the whole system vulnerable.”

Under the present protocol, exclusive national servers like military networks must be physically, electrically, and electromagnetically isolated from insecure networks like those connected to the internet. The challenge is not limited to safe technology. The lack of trained manpower is a big constraint, too.

In India, while more and more people use internet and the government machinery adopts the concept of e-governance, there are very few people to protect the networks. For example, at the NIC, which maintains the backbone of the government’s IT platform, there are only two persons per district and 15 to 20 persons per state, to fight cyber attacks. The manpower was sanctioned during the 1980s as per the IT requirement at that time. Since then, there has been no increase in manpower, despite the IT boom. No wonder that, at times, the NIC is even unable to prevent its own system from hackers. Recently, a whole sub domain, http://www.indexnews.indmin.net, created under the NIC was found to be fake.

Box

Hacker’s hitlist

Nuclear power plants: No confirmed attacks, but highly prone to hacking. Suspected attack on Rare Materials Plant at Rattehalli, Karnataka, in November 2011.

Air-traffic control systems: Air cargo customs (Mumbai) website was hacked and data stolen.

Banking: More than money, hackers are looking for sensitive financial information.

Telecom: Communication networks faced a couple of cyber threats in 2011, though these were limited to defacing of BSNL and TRAI websites. Smartphones and wifi networks are most vulnerable.

Power: Malware can tweak the network to cause blackouts, and can overload lines, eventually frying them.

Diplomacy: There have been a series of attacks on the external affairs ministry network. In 2009, more than 600 computers at the ministry were hacked into. Last year theParisembassy was attacked.

Military: Armed forces are not immune, since their command, control, supplies, and, even some weapons systems, rely on digital systems. Periodic cyber-security audits are conducted by the Army cyber security establishment.

(THE WEEK, May 21, 2012)

sum · Post by **sum** » 28 Jun 2012 14:26

A spy returns after a long service to the nation. Hope he is treated well and not left running pillar to post for getting his dues:

Freed from Pak jail, Surjeet Singh crosses over to India, says 'I was a spy'

After spending 31 years in Pakistani jail, Indian prisoner Surjeet Singh today walked free and crossed over to his home country to an emotional reunion with his family.

69-year-old Singh, who released from Lahore's Kot Lakhpat Jail this morning, crossed to the Indian side at Wagah border where he was welcomed with garlands and red shawls by his family and villagers, after completing official procedures on the Pakistan side of the border.

He said he did not have any hardship in the Pakistani jail and he got everything daily necessities like food and clothes.

Referring to Sarabjit Singh, who on the death row in the Lahore jail, he said the Indian convict was doing fine. He said he used to meet him only a weekly basis.

Asked if Sarabjit Singh had sent any message for his family, he said, "No".

Singh served a life term following his arrest on charges of spying in the 1980s in Pakistan. He was given the death sentence under the Pakistan Army Act in 1985. The death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment in 1989 by then President Ghulam Ishaq Khan.

Surjeet served a life term following his arrest on charges of spying in the 1980s in Pakistan. He was given the death sentence under the Pakistan Army Act in 1985. The death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment in 1989 by then President Ghulam Ishaq Khan.

Sarabjit was convicted and sentenced to death for alleged involvement in a string of bomb attacks that killed 14 people in Punjab in 1990.

ManuT · Post by **ManuT** » 28 Jun 2012 21:26

Not that Surjit Singh ji would be lurking around here.

Welcome Home.

---
Not sure about the "I was a spy" comment. Some are saying that he said it in response "to what were you was accused of".
Something is getting lost in translation here.

sum · Post by **sum** » 29 Jun 2012 08:17

Don't think there is much to lose over translation:
I was a RAW spy, says Surjeet

“I was a RAW (Research and Analysis Wing) agent. No one bothered about me after I got arrested. Don’t ask me too much,” Surjeet told the media after reaching Indian side of the border.

He seems to have said this before he was debriefed by BSF/agencies since DDM would have pushed across the security folks at he gate and got to him before he could be given any instructions by the authorities.

But saying such things might seal Sarabjit's fate!

manjgu · Post by **manjgu** » 29 Jun 2012 09:34

@sum ..u must be kidding !!

his fate was sealed 30 yrs ago ... what does the man have to lose now? his lost his youth, lost one of his sons, did not see the face of his daughter... must have endured hell...what more does he have to lose..

i dont know if u remember another indian spy who was released from the death row..Roop Singh Sharayar .. after his release , i gave my 1 bedroom house in faridabad to him free of cost for almost 2 yrs..... he did not say he was a RAW agent etc.... yet he ran from pillar to post trying for a gas agency / petrol pump... but he was asked for bribes etc to get a agency/pump allotted...no one listened to him... poor fellow used to have pain in his whole body ( apparently due to beatings he received in prison) and used to drink cheap liqour to pass his days.. the insensitivity of this country towards its people and defenders is astounding..

i dont know if any civilized country gives up on its people like we do.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 29 Jun 2012 22:52

NDTV moans:

Army did wrong with Lt Col. Purohit

sanjeevpunj · Post by **sanjeevpunj** » 29 Jun 2012 22:57

New threat-Paragliding terrorists
http://ibnlive.in.com/news/lashkar-plan ... 606-3.html

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 29 Jun 2012 23:33

Nation's Right To Know

The Nation's Right To Know
After sufficient time has passed, only those details should remain classified that could have an adverse impact on state-to-state relations with other countries. Possible domestic embarrassments should not come in the way
B. Raman

1962: India suffered a humiliating set-back in the Sino-Indian war. Many believed that the set-back was attributable to the then political, military and intelligence leadership. An enquiry was held into some of the aspects of the set-back. This enquiry report has not so far been released to the Indian public.

1965-66: India suffered two set-backs. During the Indo-Pakistan war of 1965, the Indian Army unit, which was ordered to open the Lahore front, got bogged down. The Army blamed the Intelligence Bureau for poor intelligence regarding the Ichogil Canal. In 1966, the Mizo National Front under Laldenga took the Indian Security Forces by surprise and practically over-ran the entire Mizoram. The Army retrieved the ground subsequently and beat back the MNF.A senior officer of the Ministry of Home Affairs of the government of India was asked to enquire into allegations of failure by the IB in both the cases. His reports reportedly absolved the IB of any blame for these set-backs, but led to the decision of Indira Gandhi to bifurcate the IB and create the R&AW on September 21,1968, to deal with external intelligence. The Indian public and research scholars have been denied access to these enquiry reports.

1971: The R&AW, hardly three years old, played a highly-commended role in the events of 1971 preceding the Indo-Pakistan War of December 1971 that contributed to the success of the Bangladesh freedom-fighters. As it happens in the case of secret agencies, many of the decisions, operations and other actions of the R&AW were based on oral instructions from Mrs Gandhi and others who played a role in the decision-making at the higher levels. There was no written documentation in the Archives of the R&AW giving a total picture of the role of the R&AW.

In 1982, Indira Gandhi recalled R.N. Kao from retirement and appointed him as Senior Adviser in the Cabinet Secretariat. He felt that in the absence of an authentic written documentation of the role of the R&AW, future generations of R&AW officers would remain in the dark about the operations of the R&AW during 1971—particularly after all the officers who had played a role in 1971 pass away. At his suggestion, the R&AW recalled from retirement an officer of the Army information wing who had served in the R&AW in 1971 and asked him to interview all officers, senior and junior, who had played a role in 1971 and write an authentic narrative of the role of the R&AW in 1971.He did part of the work.

Kao resigned after the assassination of Indira Gandhi on October 31, 1984. The R&AW terminated the services of this officer and discontinued the project. Many of the officers, who had played a role in 1971, including Kao himself, have since passed away. About half a dozen are still alive— either in their late 70s or early 80s. A legendary officer from Kerala, of whom any intelligence agency in the world will be proud and who acted as the right hand man of Kao in 1971, is in his early 90s. When these officers also pass away in the next few years, no authentic record of the role of the R&AW in the events of 1971 will be available. Their knowledge, however feeble now, will die and be cremated with them. The government should revive this project urgently, complete it quickly and make it available to the public and scholars.

1975-77: The Intelligence agencies and the Central Bureau of Investigation played a role in enabling Indira Gandhi to proclaim and sustain the State of Emergency for three years. There were allegations of serious misuse of the agencies by her and her advisers in the government and the Congress to browbeat her critics and those opposed to the Emergency. The Morarji Desai government, which came to office in 1977, ordered two enquiries into these allegations and other connected matters relating to the Emergency. The first was a quasi-judicial enquiry by the Shah Commission. The second was an administrative enquiry into the alleged misuse of the agencies conducted by a committee headed by L.P.Singh, who was Home Secretary under Indira Gandhi in the years before the Emergency. The Shah Commission’s report was released to the public, but the L.P.Singh committee report was not released to the public by any of the governments that had held office since 1980. Hopes and expectations that the A.B.Vajpayee government would release the L.P.Singh Committee report and other documents relating to the Emergency were belied. It is high time now to release all these accounts to the public so that we have a comprehensive and authentic record of the state of Emergency in public domain.

1984: Mrs Gandhi made frantic efforts to avoid having to send the Army into the Golden Temple at Amritsar for what came to be known as Operation Bluestar. She initiated back channel talks/contacts with important Sikh leaders in the Punjab as well as in the diaspora to find a peaceful outcome. The back channel contacts with important Sikh leaders of the Punjab were handled by Rajiv Gandhi and his young associates. One back channel contact with a Sikh leader of the diaspora was handled by Kao. These back channel contacts spoke very positively of Indira Gandhi and her sincere search for a peaceful outcome to the crisis in the Golden Temple. The government should ensure that the documents relating to these back channel contacts are properly preserved for evaluation after some years whether they could be released to the public.

2002: Kao passed away in January 2002. Before his death, he had reportedly recorded a narrative of some of his experiences and had it deposited for safe custody in the Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Library in New Delhi for release to the public some years after his death. One doesn’t know what time-bar he had put on its release to the public. It is now more than 10 years after his death. The government owes it to the memory of Kao, who had served the country so brilliantly, to ensure that his narrative becomes available to the public once the time-bar is over. Any attempt to keep it permanently in darkness in the Library would be an insult to the memory of this distinguished and proud son of India.

The government should appoint a high-powered group to go into all these reports and documents, excise portions that could have an adverse impact on state-to-state relations with other countries and release the rest to the public. Possible domestic embarrassments should not be a ground for excising any portion.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

B. Raman is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate, Chennai Centre For China Studies.

krisna · Post by **krisna** » 30 Jun 2012 08:17

Patrick Blackett

This brit physicist with leftist views influenced Nehru to peg defence budget to less than 2% since 1947. Nehru was all ears to this and this has been maintained ever since. For first 20 years nothing was done to fortify India. Nehru believed and successfully argued against military modernistaion.
we paid the penalty and are still paying it.
restraint and affluence

To make a fresh start on military and defense affairs, Nehru hired British
scientist and Nobel Prize–winning physicist P. M. S. Blackett to advise him
on how the Indian state could leverage science for defense.5 Blackett had been
at the center of the Allied war effort. He was privy to Ultra codebreaking, the
development of nuclear weapons, and other major military technology pro-
grams. In 1946 the United States gave him the Medal of Honor for his service
during the war, and in 1948 he won the Nobel Prize for physics for his pre-
war work. Blackett’s 1948 report went beyond the role of science in military
affairs to address both India’s strategic position and its military spending.
It recommended that India limit its military ambitions and pursue a policy
of nonalignment with both superpowers to escape a potentially debilitating
arms race. He proposed that military spending should not exceed 2 percent
of Indian GDP. Blackett also argued against India’s acquisition of nuclear
and chemical weapons. Instead, he emphasized India’s need to develop an
industrial and technological base.
Blackett’s report resonated in the Indian government and especially with
Nehru, a secular modernist who believed entirely in the ability of science to
deliver not only economic progress but also social change. He called India’s
first large dam project, the Bhakra Nangal in Punjab, “a temple of moder-
nity.” The Indian government shifted spending priorities and pushed infra-
structure for technology development over military readiness. Nehru charged
a number of scientists to develop institutions to alter the defense landscape
in India. The Cambridge-educated physicist Homi Bhabha was the father
of India’s nuclear program, and a close friend of Nehru’s. Bhabha’s home
was one of the few places Nehru visited regularly. Daulat Singh Kothari, a
Blackett protégé, became the head of the Defence Science Organisation, the
precursor to the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO).
While Indian defense research gathered momentum, India did make some
1
chapter one
Restraint
and Affluence
One of the most remarkable attributes of India as an
independent nation has been its longstanding restraint in military strategy.
Reticence in the use of force as an instrument of state policy has been the
dominant political condition for Indian thinking on the military, including
military modernization. From the initial delay in sending troops to defend
Kashmir in 1948 to the twenty-four-year hiatus in testing nuclear weapons,
India has used force mainly in response to grave provocation and as an
unwelcome last resort. The country’s greatest strategic success, the victory of
1971, occurred in response to a Pakistan Army crackdown on rebel Bengalis,
which killed tens of thousands and forced millions of refugees to flee to India.
It is notable that New Delhi did not press its military advantage in the west to
resolve the Kashmir problem. Similarly, India’s nuclear weapons program,
the military capacity that could have transformed India’s strategic position,
remained in limbo for twenty-four years after India tested its first atomic
device in 1974. There are exceptions to Indian restraint as well as questions
about whether it was driven by capacity or intention. Of course, Pakistan has
never been persuaded of Indian restraint. We discuss these issues below as
part of our investigation in this chapter into whether India’s new affluence
and access to advanced weapons technology will end the pattern of strategic
restraint, turning India into a traditional great power with clear strategic
objectives and the military means to achieve them.
The answer is not self-evident. India’s burgeoning resources will go a
long way in reducing the most apparent obstacle to India’s strategic ambi-
tion: lack of resources. Equally, India’s access to Western technology—most
importantly from the United States—could transform the Indian armed
Page 2
2 / restraint and affluence
forces in unprecedented ways, giving the country new instruments of stra-
tegic assertion. While there are good reasons to expect a breakthrough, we
do not believe it is likely. Military preparation just does not receive the kind
of political attention that is necessary to marry military modernization and
strategy. India’s military modernization suffers from weak planning, indi-
vidual service-centered doctrines, and disconnect between strategic objec-
tives and the pursuit of new technology. In comparison, other modern states,
especially India’s primary rivals, Pakistan and China, focus more steadily on
developing the military means to deal with their own security concerns.
The bar for change in India is so high that any talk of imminent military
transformation is highly premature. Since armed force has not been a cen-
tral instrument of state policy, the country has not developed the institutional
structures necessary to overhaul the mechanisms for generating military
power. Notwithstanding India’s newfound affluence or new access to military
technology, we do not see good reasons to expect dramatic change. Contrary to
conventional realist wisdom, wherein threat and affluence drive military pos-
ture, we believe that military change in India will be evolutionary, driven by the
slow pace of institutional change in the Indian military system. Consequently,
India’s strategic choices will remain limited. The Indian military system can
expand in size; create new agencies, commands, and positions; and purchase
new advanced weaponry, but it cannot address the contested demands over
retrenchment, coordination, and reconciliation of competing interests.
It is important to emphasize that strategic restraint has not served India
poorly thus far, nor will it be an ill-conceived choice for the future. In a
region characterized by many conflicts and an uneasy nuclear standoff,
restraint is a positive attribute. However, restraint is not seen as a virtue by
those who want India to be a great power, a counterbalance to a rising China,
and a provider of security in the international system rather than a passive
recipient of the order created and managed by others They strongly criti-
cize the lack of political direction, confused military doctrines, dysfunctional
civil-military relations, and lack of interest in reforming defense acquisition
and policymaking processes. Below, we examine the roots and trajectory of
Indian strategic restraint and then the challenges to restraint brought on by
the advent of affluence and new technology.
The Development of Restraint
India’s weak military policy from independence in 1947 to the war with
China in 1962 is evidence of the lower priority given to military matters
than to other national concerns. The country was unable to afford ambitious
Page 3
restraint and affluence / 3
strategic objectives and robust military rearmament. Instead, as the cold
war intensified, the national leadership sought gains in the political arena
through its policy of nonalignment. As has often been noted, India’s posi-
tion resembled America’s strategy of distancing itself from European wars,
and Nehru’s speeches of the day resembled George Washington’s Farewell
Address, which cautioned against entangling alliances.
The primary military assignment in the 1950s was international peace-
keeping, a function in which the Indian Army excelled. In Korea and later in
the Congo, the Indian Army’s performance was professional and measured.
In the peacekeeping roles of the time—as opposed to contemporary UN
Chapter 7 peace enforcement—the Indian Army found the perfect canvas for
the expression of its quiet capacity. In national defense, however, the civil-
military system, and particularly the political leadership, fell short.
The British Empire had raised a powerful Indian Army, which had fought
creditably in the world wars in Europe, North Africa, and Burma, and secured
possessions from Hong Kong to Aden; but India’s nationalists saw military
power as an instrument of oppression, imperialism, and undue financial
burden, and most were strongly critical of India’s armed forces.1 The struggle
against the British had focused in part on the Raj’s use of military power. The
success of the nonviolent independence movement buttressed the view that
India did not have to raise a strong military to develop effective means of
international influence.
Though early Indian nationalists such as Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Gopal
Krishna Gokhale saw military service as a means to secure home rule;
Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, the two Indian leaders with the
greatest influence on the direction of independent India, saw military spend-
ing as a burden imposed by the British in defense of their empire. In 1938
Nehru wrote that India did not face any significant military challenge; the
only military role he saw for the Indian Army was in suppressing the tribes
of the North-West Frontier Province, who were, in any case, too primitive
in his view to fight a modern military outside the tribal areas.2 In general,
Nehru agreed with Gandhi that the use of force in political life was inappro-
priate. The mainstream in the Indian independence struggle was committed
to nonviolent strategies. Nehru, in particular, believed that high principles
trumped the use of force as an instrument of Indian foreign policy. This
thinking was in sharp contrast to that of Nehru’s greatest political rival, Sub-
has Chandra Bose, who had a very different view about the use of force as an
instrument of politics. Bose turned to the Germans and Japanese to support
his Indian National Army that fought the British during World War II. Had
Bose survived the war (he was killed in a 1945 plane crash), India’s history
Page 4
4 / restraint and affluence
would have been very different. There were others who remained in the Con-
gress but expressed strong interest in strategic and military matters, most
exceptionally, K. M. Panikkar, the eminent diplomat-scholar, who wrote
an important treatise on India’s new security situation, especially regarding
China and the Indian Ocean.3
Despite the ideological preference, the new government did use force
repeatedly in the early years. The Indian Army put up a rearguard action to
defend Kashmir in 1948–49. The First Kashmir War remains one of India’s
most intense conflicts; the Indian Army won more Param Vir Chakra med-
als, the highest military honor in India, in that war than in any other conflict
since. Earlier the Indian Army had contributed units to the binational Pun-
jab Boundary Force deployed along the India-Pakistan border in the Punjab.
The campaign was unable to stop the ethnic carnage that accompanied par-
tition, and it went down in history as an early example of a catastrophically
failed peacekeeping force.
The army deployed at home on three other occasions. In 1948 Nehru
ordered the Indian Army to annex the princely states of Hyderabad and Jun-
agadh. In 1955 he asked the Indian Army to conduct a counterinsurgency
campaign against the rebel Naga tribesmen in Northeast India, a campaign
that has since haunted the region. In 1961 he pushed for the military libera-
tion of Goa from continued Portuguese colonization.
Civil-Military Relations
India’s nationalist leaders preserved much of the colonial state and its insti-
tutions, including the armed forces, police, and civilian bureaucracy. They
sought to maintain continuity despite imperfections and contradictions in
how the colonial institutions served a new democracy. With respect to the
armed forces, the new government allowed continuity within the institution
but brought strong political and, in time, bureaucratic supervision. The role
of the armed forces in the new nation was limited sharply, control over the
armed forces was lodged in the civilian cabinet, and after independence the
status of the army was reduced by making the uniformed heads of the navy
and air force “commanders in chief.” Then in 1955 all three positions of
commander in chief were abolished, and the chiefs assumed leadership of
their respective staffs.
Continuity in military institutions also meant that the Indian Army
remained caste- and ethnolinguistic-based in contradiction to the egalitar-
ian principles of the Indian Constitution. It also meant that the Indian offi-
cer corps preserved the tenets of British military professionalism, which,
especially since the interwar period, emphasized technology-driven doctrinal
Page 5
restraint and affluence / 5
innovation. The British inventions of tank warfare and air power revolution-
ized war. Similarly, India’s officer corps sought the best technology avail-
able, which in the early decades of independence meant importing from
the United Kingdom. In keeping with Western traditions, Indian military
officers prioritized security objectives and, unlike Pakistan, avoided involve-
ment in domestic politics.
A three-tiered structure from the colonial period continued to be used in
higher defense policymaking. The Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs
(CCPA) was the foremost national security authority. The CCPA comprised
all senior ministers of the prime minister’s cabinet and was responsible for
policymaking on a variety of subjects including foreign affairs and defense.
The next tier below the CCPA, the Defence Planning Committee (DPC)—
previously the Defence Minister Committee—consisted of the cabinet secre-
tary; the prime minister’s special secretary; the secretaries of finance, external
affairs, planning, defense, defense production, and defense research and devel-
opment; and the three service chiefs. The Chief of Staff Committee (CSC) was
the military component of the third tier. The other half was the Ministry of
Defence’s (MoD) Defence Coordination and Implementation Committee
(DCIC) chaired by the defence secretary. The DCIC coordinated defense pro-
duction, defense research and development, finances, and the requirements
of the services.4 A version of this arrangement continues to this day.
Despite production, release, and updating of official documents to facili-
tate the acquisition process (the Defence Procurement Manual and Defence
Procurement Procedure), the system continues to be plagued by fundamen-
tal structural problems. The Ministry of Finance, which has its own defense
wing, has the authority to intervene in specific spending decisions of the
Ministry of Defence, often with an eye toward limiting costs. One of the
key unresolved problems in the acquisition process, which is almost entirely
about importing weapons from advanced industrial societies (the West and
the Soviet Union), is an unrealistic and ambiguous policy of offsets (where
foreign companies, as part of their bids, commit to source a percentage of
the contract in India). However, any leader or bureaucrat advocating lower
offsets becomes vulnerable to charges of corruption. India simply lacks civil-
ian expertise in military matters. Few politicians are interested in defense
until forced by events. The bureaucracy that functions as the secretariat for
the political leaders comprises generalists with little practical knowledge
of military matters, but this group lobbies powerfully to preserve its posi-
tion against military encroachment. Even the Ministry of External Affairs,
with the greatest institutional capacity for international relations, has very
few people with sound knowledge of military matters. Although the armed
Page 6
6 / restraint and affluence
services are highly professional and have the necessary expertise, they remain
excluded from the high table.
A Fresh Start on Strategy
In military planning, the Indian government initially retained most of the
defense plan proposed by Field Marshall Sir Claude Auchinleck, the last Brit-
ish commander in chief of the Indian Army. The plan envisaged a regular
army of 200,000 backed by reserve and territorial forces, a twenty-squadron
air force, and a naval task force with two aircraft carriers. However, the new
strategic reality, the main threat coming overland from Pakistan, intruded
once the Kashmir War started, and the Indian government reduced its ambi-
tious plans for the air force and the navy.
To make a fresh start on military and defense affairs, Nehru hired British
scientist and Nobel Prize–winning physicist P. M. S. Blackett to advise him
on how the Indian state could leverage science for defense.5 Blackett had been
at the center of the Allied war effort. He was privy to Ultra codebreaking, the
development of nuclear weapons, and other major military technology pro-
grams. In 1946 the United States gave him the Medal of Honor for his service
during the war, and in 1948 he won the Nobel Prize for physics for his pre-
war work. Blackett’s 1948 report went beyond the role of science in military
affairs to address both India’s strategic position and its military spending.
It recommended that India limit its military ambitions and pursue a policy
of nonalignment with both superpowers to escape a potentially debilitating
arms race. He proposed that military spending should not exceed 2 percent
of Indian GDP. Blackett also argued against India’s acquisition of nuclear
and chemical weapons. Instead, he emphasized India’s need to develop an
industrial and technological base.
Blackett’s report resonated in the Indian government and especially with
Nehru, a secular modernist who believed entirely in the ability of science to
deliver not only economic progress but also social change. He called India’s
first large dam project, the Bhakra Nangal in Punjab, “a temple of moder-
nity.” The Indian government shifted spending priorities and pushed infra-
structure for technology development over military readiness. Nehru charged
a number of scientists to develop institutions to alter the defense landscape
in India. The Cambridge-educated physicist Homi Bhabha was the father
of India’s nuclear program, and a close friend of Nehru’s. Bhabha’s home
was one of the few places Nehru visited regularly. Daulat Singh Kothari, a
Blackett protégé, became the head of the Defence Science Organisation, the
precursor to the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO).
While Indian defense research gathered momentum, India did make some
procurement decisions. In the 1950s the Indian Air Force (IAF) ordered
Canberra bombers and transport aircraft. The Indian Army’s purchase of
jeeps precipitated India’s first major defense corruption scandal in 1955.
British debt, held by the Indian government from the colonial period, paid
for the purchases. India also struck its first nuclear deal, buying a nuclear
reactor from Canada.
On the conventional front, Indian capacity declined. Through the 1950s
defense budgets fell below what they had been under the British and were
less than those of other countries such as Pakistan and China as well as those
of the United States and the Soviet Union.6 At this time, the Indian Army
was clamoring for greater preparation against the Chinese, especially as the
Indian government had adopted a dangerous forward policy of setting up
small, unsupported positions in the disputed territory to serve as a tripwire
for a general war that New Delhi believed China did not want. Nehru worked
through close confidant V. K. Krishna Menon, the defense minister, to over-
rule military objections to the forward policy. Menon’s promotion of officers
who supported the forward policy led to India’s first civil-military crisis in
1958 when army chief General K. S. Thimayya resigned in protest. Nehru
persuaded him to stay, but was severely weakened thereafter. In contrast, B.
M. Kaul, one of Nehru’s and Menon’s handpicked generals, made a spec-
tacular rise to chief of general staff in New Delhi. His relentless push for
a forward policy against the better judgment of his colleagues in the army
brought the charge by Neville Maxwell, author of the definitive book on
India’s 1962 defeat, that he had led a putsch in the army headquarters.7
The forward policy angered the Chinese; they were further upset in 1959
when the Dalai Lama was granted asylum in India after the Chinese had
crushed the Tibetan uprising. In October 1962, after three years of Sino-
Indian confrontation, the better-prepared People’s Liberation Army routed
the Indian Army. China retained all of the disputed territory it claimed in the
northwest (including a sizable chunk of Kashmir); but more shockingly, it
invaded and occupied most of the North East Frontier Agency (NEFA—later
renamed Arunachal Pradesh). The Henderson Brooks Report, which was pre-
pared in the aftermath of the defeat and remains secret even today, reported
that Kaul’s general staff conducted the war from New Delhi, ordering thou-
sand-yard movements when local commanders reported their inability to
gain and hold ground.8 The official history of this war remains unpublished

Roperia · Post by **Roperia** » 01 Jul 2012 02:05

Cross post from West Asia News and Discussions

India wins another gulf war, gets Fasih

NEW DELHI: After the arrest of 26/11 handler Abu Jundal, India is on the verge of another success in Saudi Arabia having convinced the authorities there to deport Bihar engineer Fasih Mahmood, accused of carrying out terror strikes in India and recruiting youths for terror-related activities.

Highly placed sources in the government said India issued an identity certificate to the Saudi authorities for Fasih last week after Pakistani agencies too laid claim by stating that Fasih had a valid Pakistani passport. Pakistani agencies had made a similar claim for Jundal.

Sources said US pressure helped in swinging the case in India's favour.

Another suspect to be deported with Fasih

Saudi authorities said they had the option of ignoring the identity certificate issued by India through the ministry of external affairs for terror suspect Fasih Mahmood to counter Pakistan's claim that he was a Pakistani national. Sources said that US pressure helped swing the case in India's favour. In fact, it was Washington that had worked on the Saudis to get Fasih detained in the first place.

It is also learnt that the Saudis have agreed to deport another Indian terror suspect along with Fasih, but his identity has not been confirmed yet. Indian authorities suspect Fasih is linked with Riyaz Bhatkal and Iqbal Bhatkal, leaders of LeT proxy Indian Mujahideen (IM).

Sources say the two absconding terrorists won Fasih over when he was studying engineering in Karnataka. The engineer from Bihar's Darbhanga district has since tried to find new recruits for LeT plots. A CBI team is likely to be sent to Riyadh to bring him back.

Sources said they had to face stiff opposition from Pakistani agencies bent on proving that Fasih was a Pakistani national. He was even said to have a passport issued from Lahore. "Fasih was obviously in regular touch with agencies in Pakistan which tried to protect him," said a source. Pakistani agencies apparently wanted Fasih to be either released or sent to Pakistan.

Indian agencies said his interrogation will be crucial because as a prime recruiter for terrorist activities in India he has knowledge of several sleeper modules operating across the country. "Keeping that in mind he is no less a catch than Jundal," added the official.

According to the Interpol Red Corner Notice issued for Fasih, his name surfaced in the Pune's German Bakery blast case followed by the Chinnaswamy Stadium blast in Bangalore. The notice says that he has been a member of Indian Mujahideen since 2003. He is alleged to have been involved in the 2010 Jama Masjid blast and shootout cases.

Roperia · Post by **Roperia** » 02 Jul 2012 01:38

While Indian govt. under the leadership of Congress President Sonia Gandhi and Dr. MMS was trying to move forward in our relations with Jihadistan, ISI was planning several ambitious operations.

The life and crimes of Abu Jundal | NDTV Documentary

Syed Zabiuddin Jundal is now being questioned by Indian investigating agencies. He is one of the key people who planned and executed the 26/11 attack. But his is a story that starts from rural Maharashtra where people still remember him as a hard-working, soft-spoken boy. NDTV travels to Beed to know Jundal's story.

Roperia · Post by **Roperia** » 02 Jul 2012 04:08

Cross post from Terrorist Islamic Republic of Pakistan (TSP)

Lashkar-e-Taiba has dedicated internet team: Abu Jundal | TOI

Indian investigators are having a field day.

NEW DELHI: Syed Zabiuddin Ansari alias Abu Jundal has told his interrogators that Lashkar-e-Taiba operatives are trained in 'internet activities' and the outfit has a dedicated band of "trained and educated" boys who look after the entire gamut of online activities like sending emails, maintaining websites and using different servers in a way to show the IP addresses in the US and other western countries.

Indian agencies were aware of these facts through intelligence sources and interrogation of small-time operatives but this has been corroborated now.

Jundal also told investigators that all Lashkar recruits had to undergo a 10-12 hour exercise daily which included religious training, IED making, handling small and heavy weapons and use of communication devices.

LeT, intelligence sources said, had professionals who took classes in the use of software and internet, besides people from ISI and Pakistan army who taught use of weapons like AK series rifles, hand grenades, rockets, pistols, mortars, anti-tank mines, anti-personnel mines, anti-aircraft guns, remote control devices, explosive devices and sophisticated communication systems.

"The new recruits, several of them well educated, join these training programmes for several days. Their day starts early in the morning with religious prayers, listening to lectures, exercising, studying about weapons and how to make IEDs and later they are asked to use them. If the trainers find that a particular recruit is not concentrating, he is removed from the training programme," a source said.

Jundal has also given information about Lashkar training camps running all over Pakistan. Sources said Jundal had given names of some trainers as well.

Jundal was questioned by new Delhi Police commissioner Neeraj Kumar at the Special Cell office on Sunday afternoon. Delhi Police and IB have extracted information from Jundal about operatives in India, which officials refused to share saying 'operations were going on'.

If sources are to be believed, Jundal has also given some helpful inputs to agencies about the IISC attack in 2005 and Rampur attack in January 2008. The cops are also planning to confront him with Faheem Ansari and Sabauddin, who are in jail for the Rampur attack.

Jundal has already provided information about several ISI officers and their numbers to the agencies, apart from change of operational command base of Lashkar from Muzzafarabad to Dulai in Pakistan. In the 26/11 case, Jundal has reportedly given some new inputs about the control room, planning and execution, through which Indian agencies would be able to file a new charge sheet on Pakistan's role in the attack.

Suresh S · Post by **Suresh S** » 02 Jul 2012 05:15

Thanks Ramana for the article by Mr Raman

nahata

Roperia · Post by **Roperia** » 03 Jul 2012 12:07

Planned to attack Nashik Defence Academy after 26/11, says Abu Jundal | NDTV

New Delhi: Abu Jundal has reportedly told interrogators that after 26/11, the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) had shortlisted the Nashik Police Academy in Maharashtra as a terror target. The plan was to emulate the attack on the police training academy in Lahore in 2009 - terrorists entered the school with grenades and rockets; at least 10 people were killed over nearly eight hours as Pakistani officials fought back.
...

Austin · Post by **Austin** » 07 Jul 2012 12:03

The Secret Plot to Blame India
Jundal's arrest exposes Pak's agenda of turning 26/11 into an Indian conspiracy

Austin · Post by **Austin** » 07 Jul 2012 12:06

Stockbroker Ketan Parekh in major stock market scam, reveals IB report

Aditya_V · Post by **Aditya_V** » 07 Jul 2012 12:27

Austin wrote:The Secret Plot to Blame India
Jundal's arrest exposes Pak's agenda of turning 26/11 into an Indian conspiracy

I think Samjauta blasts was the turning point where ISI saw how some Indians who are powerful can blame other Indians whom they hate and go to any extent.

Austin · Post by **Austin** » 07 Jul 2012 12:27

‘I Infiltrated Abhinav Bharat, Did My Job, Kept Bosses In The Loop’ : Lt Col Prasad Shrikant Purohit

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 08 Jul 2012 10:28

Aditya_V wrote:
Austin wrote:The Secret Plot to Blame India
Jundal's arrest exposes Pak's agenda of turning 26/11 into an Indian conspiracy
I think Samjauta blasts was the turning point where ISI saw how some Indians who are powerful can blame other Indians whom they hate and go to any extent.

Paki consider the real secular Indians to be their friends and will join them to bash India and Hindus.

shyamd · Post by **shyamd** » 09 Jul 2012 15:43

Behind enemy lines

It was the height of the Indian armed forces' mobilisation against Pakistan during Operation Parakram after the December 13, 2001 terrorist attack on the Parliament. With military on both sides in confrontation mode, Indian satellites picked up a concentration of Pakistani armour across the
Barmer border in Rajasthan.

Since the land across Barmer is marshy and not ideal for tanks, New Delhi was perturbed - Pakistan's armour thrust was expected across the Jaisalmer sector, not Barmer. Rather than take chances, the Indian intelligence agencies were asked to confirm whether there was a tank formation across the Barmer sector.

Nawab, an opium smuggler, was sent by the intelligence services across the border from Chotan near Barmer to confirm the satellite report. While New Delhi desperately needed information, Nawab was eyeing a shipment of opium from nearby Umerkot - a town in Sindh - as a reward for confirming the satellite imagery.

Within a day, Nawab came back to Barmer and proudly told his handler that he had touched the tank formation with his own hands and found them to be fakes made out of cardboard. The message was relayed back to Raisina Hill that 'all was quiet on the western front'.

Call them Nawab, Ramzana, Kirpal or Surjeet Singh - the man who crossed Wagah on June 29 after spending 30 years and six months in Lahore's Kot Lakhpat Jail on charges of spying for India - the world of trans-border couriers is integral to espionage in the subcontinent.

After coming back, Surjeet Singh claimed that he was indeed spying for India's premier intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW). He now intends to move the courts in India to be compensated by the government for the 30 years he lost in, what he calls, the service of the nation. Without any existing official record, there is no way to verify Surjeet's claims.

Ajit Doval, former director, Intelligence Bureau, said: "There is nothing against Surjeet that indicates that the man was indulging in espionage as alleged by Pakistan's agencies."

A life of danger
However, cross-border couriers traditionally play a crucial role in collection of information in the subcontinent.

Such couriers, quite like Surjeet's claims, are part of the human intelligence network who add value to the information collected through either electronic or satellite means.

With the India-Pak border from Gujarat to Jammu and Kashmir almost completely fenced and huge leaps made in various surveillance technologies, cross-border couriers, though they still exist, are a dying breed.

When border fencing is in place, the life of a trans-border courier is more dangerous than playing Russian roulette. Guards on both the sides of the border know when the gate is opened and who goes through it.

Thus, the courier has to be a double agent who supplies information on India across border to the Pakistan Rangers and then links up with another courier who in turn introduces him to a source for further information.

These couriers act only as agents of intelligence agencies and are not paid employees. The information collected by them is low-grade and is often of low value.

For instance, they might pick up movement of tank trailers or aircraft, or a sharp dip in purchase of vegetables or meat by a particular enemy formation near the border to indicate troop movement. For this service, couriers either get cash rewards or are quietly allowed free passage of smuggled goods.

Evolving the game
With the advent of technology, those days are long gone when Indian agents or moles would be injected across the border after circumcising them and giving them false identities.

These agents would later write letters conveying personal welfare on one side of the page and information with secret ink on the other. These would be posted to a pre-determined address in Dubai or other parts of the Gulf for pick-ups.

Today, the spying game has become far more sophisticated and even sending intelligence reports from missions through the diplomatic bags has become outdated with TV news channels beaming live information from other countries round the clock.

Indian spy tradecraft is actually quite evolved since it has been practiced assiduously from times of Chanakya during the Mauryan empire. The R&AW, for instance, recruits around 600-700 personnel each year with executive cadre being picked up from some 36 Group A government services.

There are some 13 cadres within the R&AW like technical, telecommunications and language, which are tasked to defend India's national security and collect denied information for policy formulation against an adversary.

Besides, the executive cadre is hired from identified group A services on the basis of examination conducted by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) and inducted into R&AW Allied Services (RAS).

The on-campus recruitment has been done away with this year as this route was often used by officers in the past to promote their own kith and kin.

The R&AW officers and personnel are posted in Indian missions abroad under official cover like other countries and are tasked to collect information and build contacts by their parent organisations.

The information collected is then sent through secure networks and analysed by experts before being passed on to the consumers.

RAW's elder sister Intelligence Bureau, which is in charge of India's internal security with personnel posted abroad, is largely officered by civil servants from Indian Police Services even though it has an in-house cadre and training.

The IB cadre is recruited through ministry of home affairs with personnel going up the ladder from constables, assistant central intelligence officer to deputy CIO to assistant director and thereon.

Trained in in-house institute in Lutyen's Delhi, the IB personnel are spread all over India through subsidiary IB units and also man posts on the border collecting intelligence that has a bearing on internal security.

Both R&AW and IB have operational wings which are mandated for special missions or objectives in pursuit of national policies.

Apart from the big two, the Military Intelligence has a mandate within 25 kilometer across the Indian borders and even Border Security Force operates on the borders.

Sometimes in fact, all the Indian agencies on the border depend on one Nawab or Ramzana or Kirpal to do the work on the basis of high deniability and the adversary also does the same. But the Indian spy world is much bigger than just running trans-border couriers.

It has a history of stellar operations and operators from the days of legendary IB director BN Mullick and R&AW chiefs like RN Kao and K Shankaran Nair.

Then there are likes of Ajit Doval, who is said to have walked into Pakistani nuclear establishment at Kahuta during his six-year long posting in Islamabad in the 1980s and was inside the Golden Temple during Operation Black Thunder in 1988 at the height of the Sikh-separatist movement in Punjab.

Awarded the Kirti Chakra, a military decoration, for a still-classified operation, Doval was later instrumental in blunting the edge of Kashmiri separatists during his posting in London.

His able comrade in IB operations wing and during Punjab militancy days was exceptional Nehchal Sandhu.

He at present heads the IB and is a counter-terror expert, planner and executor par excellence and a walking encyclopedia on Lashkar-e-Taiba and other Islamist terrorist groups.

The R&AW has had its own share of successes like the Bangladesh War, accession of Sikkim and keeping a watch on the enemies of friendly leaders in the subcontinent.

The present R&AW chief Sanjiv Tripathi has had his own share of success in help forging the 1997 Chittagong Hill Tracts Agreement between Bangladesh and Hill Tracts tribals.

sum · Post by **sum** » 09 Jul 2012 15:52

Then there are likes of Ajit Doval, who is said to have walked into Pakistani nuclear establishment at Kahuta during his six-year long posting in Islamabad in the 1980s

Awarded the Kirti Chakra, a military decoration, for a still-classified operation, Doval was later instrumental in blunting the edge of Kashmiri separatists during his posting in London.

Am sure Shri. Doval's book( if it ever comes through) will be just as amazing as Dhar-ji's

And to think that $%#^ like some INC spokespersons called him a BJP agent on a talk show just because he mentioned how INC had degraded our intel apparatus in UPA times.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 10 Jul 2012 04:17

Old article;

IB closer to MI5 than to Nehru

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 10 Jul 2012 05:33

^^

How close is the life of a real spy to that portrayed in popular fiction or films?
The interaction between fact and fiction has been more interesting than has been realised.

For instance, about half the reason for setting up MI5 and MI6 before World War I was that spy novelists were so successful that they persuaded the public and the media that Britain was being overrun by German spies!

Besides, intelligence is the only profession in the world where a fictional character is at least 100 times better known than anybody who works or has worked in the field: a great majority of the world’s population has seen James Bond films.

In my book, there is a picture of MI5’s first double agent, Christopher Draper, flying under a London bridge — even James Bond never did that. This man, by working as a double agent in Germany during WW II — that is, by working for German intelligence while actually working for MI5 — achieved something crucial: he discovered the addresses which were being used by German intelligence in their dealings with their foreign agents. It was with that information that MI5 began to construct the most successful system of deception in the history of warfare: the double cross system.

This double cross system is also used on India with Indian informers who think that they are doing the right thing for India. This is a peace time espionage and one of the largest in history

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 10 Jul 2012 07:52

Acharya and ShyamD, Please read the bio of Sankar Sen in google books. Its very illuminating about IB and how it works.
Once you both read and say I read it we can discuss it here.

shyamd · Post by **shyamd** » 10 Jul 2012 16:13

Wasn't able to find it - do you have a link?

Is it this one: http://books.google.co.uk/books/about/T ... edir_esc=y

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 10 Jul 2012 22:24

shyamd · Post by **shyamd** » 10 Jul 2012 22:59

Right, read it... whats your take?

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 12 Jul 2012 02:37

ramana wrote:Yes.

Page 107 author talks about his meeting with Chief Mullick. and his sense of self importance.
JLN and Mullick were the only two people who made the major decision. This is critical to how events happened with MI6 having a close info.

pentaiah · Post by **pentaiah** » 12 Jul 2012 06:36

Read On

*****
NEW DELHI: In yet another security breach in the military, an Army officer has been caught for establishing contact on social networking site Facebook with a Bangladeshi woman working for Pakistan's ISI. The woman, in fact, had earlier "honey-trapped" another Indian officer in an ISI espionage operation in Bangladesh late last year.

The Army is conducting a court of inquiry (CoI) against the officer, a lieutenant colonel from the 82 Armoured Regiment deployed in a forward formation in Suratgarh district of Rajasthan, to ascertain whether he divulged or compromised classified operational information along the western front with Pakistan.

The Army strongly denied reports that the lieutenant colonel had also got entangled in a honey trap -- basically an intelligence operation for first seducing and then blackmailing a person into divulging confidential information - or that two laptops with sensitive information had gone missing.

"The officer was just chatting online with the woman on the computer ... there was no physical contact. No laptops have been lost. We are conducting a CoI into the incident," a senior officer said.

Intelligence Bureau got wind of the matter as they were already tracking the Bangladeshi woman, identified as Sheeba, after she had honey trapped another Indian lieutenant colonel, this time a Para Regiment commando, who was undergoing a staff college course in the Bangladesh military academy in Dhaka last year.

"The Para officer was compromised in the ISI honey trap at Dhaka. But instead of giving away any information, he alerted Indian authorities and was promptly flown out of Bangladesh," an official said.

Other military officers have also been caught in honey traps in recent years. The Navy, for instance, last year sacked Commodore Sukhjinder Singh after his sexually explicit pictures with a Russian woman had surfaced. Singh was posted in Moscow as part of the Indian negotiating team for the acquisition of aircraft carrier Admiral Gorshkov (now rechristened INS Vikramaditya), for which India finally agreed to pay $2.33 billion after protracted and bitter negotiations with Russia.

Several military officers are also in the dock for compromising classified information and data through the improper use of internet or social networking websites like Facebook, Orkut and Twitter despite strict guidelines against such conduct.

Five to six officers, for instance, are facing a naval board of inquiry (BoI) after Chinese hackers were recently detected to have broken into sensitive naval computers, in and around Eastern Navy Command HQs at Visakhapatnam, with the help of "worm-infected" pen-drives.

Another BoI in the Mumbai-based Western Navy Command has recommended stringent action, including dismissal from service, against at least two commanders for posting confidential information and data, including location of warships and their patrolling patterns, on Facebook.

VinodTK · Post by **VinodTK** » 12 Jul 2012 08:05

India plans strategic encirclement of China

:
:
There has been a particular growing fear of a "China Threat" within Indian government and strategist circles over the past decade, with many feeling Beijing is engaging in encirclement and containment strategies in a persistent attempt to tie India down to the Indian subcontinent. Responding to this perceived threat, New Delhi has gradually been undertaking a combination of internal balancing, by means of increasing its military capabilities on both land and at sea, and external balancing, via military cooperation with states in East and Southeast Asia.

Indian internal balancing has taken various forms and has been reflected in the increasing defense budget which was announced as US$41 billion for 2012-13, a 17% increase on the previous year.

Firstly, this has helped to fund an ongoing military modernization program with the recent deal for 126 French Rafale fighters to be supplied by Dassault over the coming decade in conjunction with over 200 fifth-generation fighter aircraft to be developed in cooperation with Russia by 2017.

Secondly, India has been strengthening its defenses along its disputed border regions with China; 100,000 additional troops were stationed along the Line of Actual Control in 2011, along with the deployment of the 300-kilometer range BrahMos cruise missile along the eastern border region. These deployments have been complemented by increasing infrastructural developments including new roads and the construction and upgrading of assorted air bases across the regions.

Finally, and most significantly, India has been bolstering its nuclear capabilities with its "flawless" test of the Agni-V missile, which is able to carry a nuclear warhead and with a 5,000-kilometer range can strike a majority of major Chinese cities along its eastern seaboard.

In addition to military modernization on land, New Delhi has been developing its naval capabilities with naval commanders taking a visible turn in the direction of the teachings of Alfred T Mahan and his sea-based geopolitical philosophy, with ambitious future plans for a fully fledged and highly capable blue water navy able to protect coastal waters, vital sea lanes of communication and project power deep into the Indian and surrounding oceans.

Naval modernization has included the establishment of two new deep-sea naval port facilities at Kawar on the southwest coast and near Viskhapatnam as part of the Eastern Naval Command. In tandem with the establishment of the Far Eastern Naval Command (FENC) at Port Blair in the Andaman Islands, the Indian Navy is able to project power across the Bay of Bengal and into the Strait of Malacca, intensifying China's "Malacca Dilemma".

These developments have been complemented by the increasing purchases and indigenous development of naval hardware, including the nuclear submarine INS Chakra on a 10-year lease form Russia and the locally developed INS Airhant. Additionally, the former Russian aircraft carrier Gorshkov, renamed INS Vikramaditya, is to be commissioned into service of the Indian Navy by December 2012. These recent enlargements will make up part of a planned 160-vessel fleet including three aircraft carrier groups by the mid 2020s, outlined by Indian Naval Chief Admiral Sureesh Mehta.

Internal balancing is taking considerable shape with increasing hardware purchases and consistent upgrading of military capabilities along the border with China and also in the naval realm, where China is undergoing rapid expansion, increasing competition in and around the Indian Ocean. This balancing has also taken considerable shape in terms of external balancing and cooperation with other states in the region.

Military cooperation with other states extends across the realms of both land and sea. On land, New Delhi has become increasingly invested in its relations with Afghanistan, establishing a Strategic Partnership in October 2011, eyeing a greater role following the planned 2014 withdrawal of coalition forces.

With Tajikistan, India has increased its interaction with Tajik security forces and has provided funding for the upgrading of the Farkhor and Ayni air bases succeeding construction of a military hospital and logistics depot. Ayni air base is of particular significance with reports that Tajikistan, India and Russia are in talks over the joint use of the base and that an Indian air force currently has Mi-17 helicopters and has leased Russian fighter jets stationed at the base.

New Delhi has also increased cooperation with Mongolia, signing an agreement on Defense Cooperation in 2001, positioning radar systems able to monitor Chinese missile tests, holding bilateral military exercises since 2004 and having a quiet discussion over basing rights.

Indian relations with Tajikistan and Afghanistan in particular also have the potential to undermine China's use of Pakistan as a proxy state against India in an attempt to split its focus along two fronts. With greater influence in Afghanistan, New Delhi can potentially undercut Pakistani influence in a country which Islamabad has traditionally considered as within its strategic sphere of influence.

Extending into the maritime realm, further cooperation and encirclement can be observed as India has developed ties with some historically contentious neighbors of the Chinese. First of all, Indo-Singapore relations have flourished in recent years with their Defense Cooperation agreement of 2003 upgrading ties and extending bilateral military exercises into all three wings of the armed forces, and most significantly the SIMBEX naval exercises in the Bay of Bengal and South China Sea.

Relations with Singapore have particular geopolitical importance as Singapore is at the western approaches to the South China Sea and eastern approaches to the Strait of Malacca, both vital sea lanes of communication for India and China. Close security relations between New Delhi and Singapore allow for strong power projection by the Indian navy into the South China Sea, an area of particular sensitivity to China with its claims of sovereignty over the sea; they also allow for India to threaten the closure of the Strait of Malacca, exacerbating Beijing's "Malacca Dilemma".

Next stop along India's maritime encirclement of China is Vietnam, with New Delhi and Hanoi sharing a history of conflict with China. Strong ties exist dating back to their 1994 defense agreement and include military training and bilateral naval exercises carried out in the South China Sea which have drawn much criticism from Beijing, not helped by the talk of India providing BrahMos missiles to Vietnam, presenting an undeniable deterrent to Chinese aggression in the South China Sea.

Hanoi has also recently granted the Indian Navy basing rights at the Nha Trang port, providing a foothold in the South China Sea and intensifying Chinese fears, demonstrated by the July 22, 2011, confrontation of INS Airavat when operating off the Vietnamese coast.

Indo-Japanese security relations provide a real security dilemma for China, as close ties between these two historically contentious neighbors pose the possibility of a pincer movement by two great powers and complete the encirclement of China by land and sea.

Ties between India and Japan are continuously growing and expanding further into the security field with the MALABAR naval exercises. These relations and encirclement of China is further complemented by expanding ties with Japan's old ally and China's greatest threat, the United States. While ties between New Delhi and Washington remain fairly low key, partially due to India's non-alignment strategy, they hold the greatest potential for containment of China. Both sides hold their relations in high esteem, with President Barack Obama proclaiming that their relationship "will be one of the defining relationships of the 21st century".

Despite the constant rhetoric emanating from India proclaiming it has no intention of encirclement or containment of its communist neighbor, its actions, as so often found in international relations, speak much louder volumes about its intentions and reveal a great concern over China's rise to Great Power status.

However, these concerns may be well placed as China has been undertaking many actions which can easily be interpreted as an effort to encircle India and contain its rise, tying it down to the Indian subcontinent. So depending on which angle one observes the situation from, either side can be construed to be the aggressor or just acting in a defensive manner.

abhishek_sharma · Post by **abhishek_sharma** » 13 Jul 2012 06:28

NCTC may be kept out of IB

abhishek_sharma · Post by **abhishek_sharma** » 15 Jul 2012 06:27

Former RAW officer tells the complete story of the double agent who got away

Austin · Post by **Austin** » 15 Jul 2012 07:06

If they knew he was photo copying secret stuff that he shouldnt have in first place then he should have been suspended pending investigation , he was extensively trailed and finally they let him go.

Wonder if the book was to provide clean chit to RAW for the spy escape stating we knew him all along and we knew what he was doing and we just monitored him and let him go for lack of evidence which is not the case in the first place.

Boreas · Post by **Boreas** » 15 Jul 2012 09:17

Austin wrote:If they knew he was photo copying secret stuff that he shouldnt have in first place then he should have been suspended pending investigation , he was extensively trailed and finally they let him go.

Its never about catching one man. as soon as a spy is identified his/her every action is a piece of vital information for the vitim nation.

Its has been always like this, in the past both India and Pakistan, as well as in there time US, UK and USSR have let known spies live for years feeding them targeted data to understand the outward flow of information and follow the trail of actions taken by enemy agency.

The simplest benefit is.. it lets you identify many more hidding under the rag. In older times it also helped in breaking ciphered communication.

kenop · Post by **kenop** » 16 Jul 2012 10:29

Civil war cripples intel set-up

... daily internecine turf wars that are being fought between India’s multiple intelligence agencies in New Delhi and abroad. Part of the problem is the proliferation of intelligence agencies with overlapping charters. While RAW was created out of the IB in 1968 to gather external intelligence, the internal intelligence agency has managed to claw its way into creating stations abroad.

Austin · Post by **Austin** » 16 Jul 2012 10:42

Boreas wrote:The simplest benefit is.. it lets you identify many more hidding under the rag. In older times it also helped in breaking ciphered communication.

All that is fine but at the time when he was running out from country they should have nabbed him if R&AW knew what he was up too as the former boss writes.

The only time spies fly out is when they know their game is up or are tipped about being under surveillance and make good of their escape that what Rabinder did with CIA help.

I suspect he wrote that to clear his organisation name of any failure in nabbing Rabider and gave a different story to it.

Austin · Post by **Austin** » 16 Jul 2012 10:48

kenop wrote:Civil war cripples intel set-up

Want post Kargil IB was mandated to look into internal affairs and states neighbouring India while RAW was responsible for ROW , wonder why IB would get into intelligence gathering at Washington, London, Berlin, ME and step over RAW shoes , sounds like turf battle will hurt indias interest.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 16 Jul 2012 22:59

Its like FBI operating aborad for CT matters.
So no need for RAW to get kaccha.

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 16 Jul 2012 23:39

Boreas wrote:
Austin wrote:If they knew he was photo copying secret stuff that he shouldnt have in first place then he should have been suspended pending investigation , he was extensively trailed and finally they let him go.
Its never about catching one man. as soon as a spy is identified his/her every action is a piece of vital information for the vitim nation.

The simplest benefit is.. it lets you identify many more hidding under the rag. In older times it also helped in breaking ciphered communication.

Double agents are allowed to do this since they lead to new trails in the underground world.