Intelligence and National Security Discussion

[Gerard]

Last page of old thread

[SaiK]

http://www.thehinducentre.com/multimedi ... 11665a.pdf

Why Intelligence Fails

Chapter 9
Direction for Future Intelligence Reforms
Several monographs relating to intelligence reforms have made the following recommendations:
1. A sound system of checks and balances is an absolute necessity in averting repeated
intelligence failures. The intelligence agencies, Parliament, legislature and external
review bodies should play independent roles in overseeing the workings of the
intelligence community.113
2. As old-fashioned traditional military threats are overshadowed by new asymmetric
threats, there is a need for reprioritisation of national security objectives and for
redefining the intelligence priorities of the country.114
3. As key intelligence experts in the US note, “Speed and agility is the key to war on
terrorism, not more levels of bureaucracy.”
4. There is a growing realisation that the obsession with secrecy has prevented
agencies from interacting with experts in the outside world where a good deal of
knowledge and expertise exists. Advances in technology and information
revolution calls for a multidisciplinary approach to data analysis.
An IDSA Task Force report on intelligence reforms noted that “there is a broad
consensus shared by a wide section of Indian intelligence professionals and academicians about
the need to enable better coordination amongst various agencies”.
Yet, the evidence I have gathered through frank discussions with several former
intelligence personnel calls for a different direction towards intelligence reforms.
Summary of recommendations
The absence of an independent body to monitor the performance of intelligence
agencies, the lack of reasonable expectations from the intelligence community, coupled with a
recruitment bias has hampered professionalism within intelligence agencies. This will be clearly
addressed in the recommendations advanced below:
I. Towards building a theory to explain failures
Intelligence review committees in the country often take the wrong turn because the subject of
intelligence failure is overloaded with questionable assumptions.
1. There is a need for more theorising in the field to reduce the lack of definitional clarity,
and to enable a better understanding of the problems faced by the intelligence
community.
2. There’s a need to develop a professional literature of intelligence studies which will
contribute to the growth of a systematic body of knowledge about intelligence processes
in the country.
II. Recruitment, training & recognition
113 Locating India’s intelligence agencies – in a democratic framework
114 ORF workshop on intelligence failures
46
1. The bureaucratic nature of intelligence agencies should not hamper recruitment and
training. What agencies urgently require is a more open recruitment policy and a rigorous
procedure of hiring the most flexible minds in the country.
2. Agencies should set high standards for recruiting and insist on special language or other
interpretation skills from prospective candidates.
III. Capacity building & skill management
1. Out of the total intelligence personnel within IB, only a few hundreds of them have been
specifically hired to gather and analyse intelligence relating to counter-terrorism.
Therefore, both the manpower quality and quantity should be improved to effectively
avert failures of intelligence.
2. Though a need for professionalising the intelligence agencies has been highlighted in the
past, no reform has been proposed to allow lateral entry and/or promote the use of
interpersonal skills in gathering intelligence. For example, a banker will have a better grip
on issues relating to money laundering than a normal intelligence analyst who is recruited
without knowledge about the subject.
3. There is a need to relax the secretive nature of intelligence agencies and outsource
experts from varied backgrounds to allow for creative analysis.
IV. Intelligence analysis
1. Reforms relating to improving training for intelligence analysts should aim at reducing
the time taken to whet an individual. Such reforms should also allow for inter-agency
training, which can provide an insight into how their counterparts in other agencies
work.
2. The real challenge is to recruit and train intelligence analysts who are encouraged to think
creatively. Scenario building and conflict simulations can certainly address the lack of
imaginative intelligence reasoning of a handful of intelligence analysts and also provide a
direction for future intelligence gathering.
3. Former intelligence personnel can be particularly helpful in building real-time scenarios
and making conflict simulations.
V. Coordination and cohesion in working
1. Organisational reforms such as MAC can effectively function only if the community
creates a clear communication protocol and establish a set of rules for engaging and deengaging.
NCTC or NATGRID are also likely to benefit from it when implemented.
2. What’s more urgent is a change in the attitude of a few intelligence personnel and the
need to change the culture of spy circles from ‘need to know’ to ‘need to share’.
VI. Need for post-event audits
1. Creating mechanisms for intelligence oversight might not happen overnight. However,
there is a need to do in-depth aftermath analysis within intelligence agencies. This will
not only help them identify where they’ve gone wrong, but also provide direction for
future intelligence operations.
47
VII. Intelligence reforms
1. Sweeping organisational reforms such as NCTC or NATGRID are not the only ways to
make intelligence agencies work together. The cultural barriers that stop agencies from
adequately sharing intelligence can be corrected using less severe measures.
2. The first step towards changing such a culture is standardising the rules for protecting
information and relaxing certain ethical constraints relating to ‘operational loyalty.’
3. Reforms should not only focus on creating newer capabilities, it should lay more
importance on what obstacles are stopping existing capabilities from being efficient. Real
reforms should try to change organisational culture instead of altering organisational
charts.

I'd say, well collected article.. what we all have discussed, and so many connect the dot issues originating from disasters like 911 & 2611.

But hey, someone has to collect it and present it. BRF monitor may please note.

[ramana]

Some GOI agency is being setup to monitor the media. Scope of work can be seen from the 600 TV channels and 400 Radio Stations to be monitored.

[member_25399]

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/india ... /1183524/0

A threat analysis carried out by security agencies on the basis of details provided by Yasin Bhatkal and aide Akhtar Asadullah, nabbed on the Indo-Nepal border in the last week of August, has revealed that the Indian Mujahideen (IM) has become stronger and more lethal despite the arrest of over 100 of its cadres.

The group has branched out to Pakistan and Afghanistan, where its cadres are fighting alongside the Taliban.There are now three factions of the IM and Amir Reza Khan alias 'Rizwan' is no more its chief. He has set up another group and continues to enjoy the patronage of the ISI.

"Our initial assessment was that the group has weakened with arrest of so many cadres and there is division. But the IM, considered a creation of the fugitive Amir Reza Khan, has grown many folds. Each group has its men and logistics in India," a counter-terror official said. The IM structure changed after the 2008 Batla House encounter and engineer-turned-jihadist Riyaz Bhatkal and his brother Iqbal began calling the shots as they shifted to Pakistan, said officials. This is believed to have caused an acrimonious spat between Riyaz and Amir, who decided to go his separate way.

Another top IM operative Shahnawaz, a Unani doctor and brother of Mohd Saif of Azamgarh, is now a lieutenant of Amir. Saif was arrested during the Batla House encounter.

Amir's sister-in-law is believed to have married Shahnawaz, who now recruits youths from UP with the help of local contacts in SIMI.

This has meant less financial support from the ISI to Riyaz but he also gets help from other militants groups. The module headed by Riyaz is learnt to have had plans to start a legal business in Nepal, where a large number of Indian businessmen have settled. This business would have been used as cover to carry out strikes and transfer money. At the time of arrest, Yasin was practising medicine and had plans to open a wholesale medical shop with the name 'Anmol'. The group was desperate to carry out kidnappings and robberies.

The third faction of the IM is headed by Mohd Sajid alias Bada Sajid and Mirza Shadab Beig, who belong to Azamgarh in UP and reportedly fought in Afghanistan against the US forces. According to one account, Iqbal Bhatkal was chosen as the 'Amir' of IM's Azamgarh module after the death of Atif Ameen in 2008. The selection was made in Dubai where scores of IM operatives fled after a crackdown in 2008. The group then moved to Pakistan.

A few years ago, some boys of the Azamgarh module revolted against Iqbal due to his philandering ways. Iqbal is learnt to have married a Pakistani woman. While Riyaz was running his own module with Yasin's help, the Azamgarh boys were not given any tasks by Iqbal, which frustrated them and they decided to fight in Afghanistan. The group now led by Mirza Shadab Beig is trying to forge an alliance with al-Qaeda and has denounced Iqbal as its 'Amir'.

This is getting interesting. Indians now fighting alongside Taliban. Is it the first time that Indians fighting in Afghanistan has been reported or I was unaware ? Read about Indian in Syria though.

[member_27862]

Gents, make it a rule to have a minimum of 50% of all Intelligence Agency cadre to be from the forces (serving on deputation or retired). Just see the efficiency difference then......a unit like TSD/DIA/MI may suck for the bureaucrats/ politicians , but that is what works in an inefficient intelligence gathering environment like ours.....so get them boys in the R&AW, IB etc etc ......case in point is the CIA, MI6, FSB....a large proportion of these agencies are ex Military.......

Maybe this has been spoken of before, just reiterating!!!!!

[ramana]

My effort in 1999:

http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/MONITOR/I ... -MON7.html

and after KRC report was published:


http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/MONITOR/I ... amana.html

Please read the factor for surprise.

[Aaryan]

Although it can be easily dismissed as a conspiracy theory still it makes and good read..

http://indianintelligence2009.blogspot.in/

[Austin]

NSA, ‘Five Eyes’ use Australian embassies to gather intel on Asia

US intelligence agencies are using Australian embassies throughout Asia to intercept data and gather information across the continent, according to the latest report based on documents leaked by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.

Data collection facilities operate out of the embassies in Jakarta, Bangkok, Hanoi, Bejing, and Dili, according to Der Spiegel. There are also units in the Australian High Commission in Kuala Lumpur, the most populated city in Malaysia, and Port Moresby, the capital of Papua New Guinea.

The document, codenamed ‘STATEROOM,’ indicates the outfits “are small in size and in number of personnel staffing them...They are covert, and their true mission is not known by the majority of the diplomatic staff at the facility where they are assigned.”

The NSA document viewed by Der Spiegel also proves that the intelligence missions are hidden: “For example antennas are sometimes hidden in false architectural features or roof maintenance sheds.”

It really isn’t enough to be outraged," German Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schanarrenberger told rbb-Inforadio this week. “This would be a signal that something can happen and make clear to the Americans that the [EU’s] policy is changing.”

Yet intelligence officers speaking to Fairfax Media now say that it is good to stop terrorism and international crime, “but the main focus is political, diplomatic and economic intelligence.”

[Austin]

Avoiding NSA clutches: India set to launch internal email policy for govt communications

India is on the verge of implementing an internal email policy for official communications in order to avoid using American-based web services that have been compromised by the National Security Agency.

In December, India will unveil a new internal policy devised to avoid major email service providers - such as Gmail, Yahoo! or Outlook.com - that house their servers in the United States.

A communications official confirmed Tuesday that the plan is near implementation, The Times of India reported.

"Email policy of the government of India, as this policy will be called, is almost ready and we are taking views from other ministries on this. Our effort will be to operationalize it by mid- or end-December," Department of Electronics and Information Technology Sec. J Satyanarayana said at a Delhi summit.

All services will be provided by India's own National Informatics Centre (NIC).

India’s plan was first announced in August, after revelations supplied by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden showed the NSA collected over six billion pieces of information from India’s computer and telephone networks in just one month.

In addition, according to Snowden documents first reported by The Hindu, the NSA bugged computers and telephones at India’s United Nations office and embassy in Washington DC, likely exposing vast amounts of computer storage, internet traffic, emails, telephone, and office conversations.

"It is imperative in view of the security concerns that exist in other countries,'' India’s communications and IT minister, Kapil Sibal, said in August. He added that all official emails will be encrypted.

[wig]

Russia 'spied on G20 leaders with USB sticks' Russia used complimentary 'Trojan horse' pen drives to spy on delegates at G20 summit, it has been reported
excerpts

Russia spied on foreign powers at last month’s G20 summit by giving delegations USB pen drives capable of downloading sensitive information from laptops, it was claimed today.


The devices were given to foreign delegates, including heads of state, at the summit near St Petersburg, according to reports in two Italian newspapers, La Stampa and Corriere della Sera.
Delegations also received mobile phone recharging devices which were also reportedly capable of secretly tapping into emails, text messages and telephone calls.

The latest claims of international espionage come on the heels of allegations that the United States’ National Security Agency spied on friendly European powers, including Germany, France, Spain and Italy, by covertly monitoring tens of millions of telephone calls.

The alleged attempts by Moscow to access secret information from foreign powers at the G20 came at a time of high tension between the US and Russia, in particular over Syria and the Russian granting of asylum to former NSA systems analyst Edward Snowden.

Suspicions were first raised about the Russian spying campaign by Herman Van Rompuy, the President of the European Council, according to Corriere della Sera, which carried the story on its front page.

He ordered the USB pen drives and other devices received by the delegates in St Petersburg to be analysed by intelligence experts in Brussels, as well as Germany’s secret service.

A memorandum was then sent out to G20 members, the Italian daily claimed.

“The USB pen drives and the recharging cables were able to covertly capture computer and mobile phone data,” the secret memo said.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... ticks.html

[rajithn]

NSA, ‘Five Eyes’ use Australian embassies to gather intel on Asia

US intelligence agencies are using Australian embassies throughout Asia to intercept data and gather information across the continent, according to the latest report based on documents leaked by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.

Data collection facilities operate out of the embassies in Jakarta, Bangkok, Hanoi, Bejing, and Dili, according to Der Spiegel. There are also units in the Australian High Commission in Kuala Lumpur, the most populated city in Malaysia, and Port Moresby, the capital of Papua New Guinea.

The document, codenamed ‘STATEROOM,’ indicates the outfits “are small in size and in number of personnel staffing them...They are covert, and their true mission is not known by the majority of the diplomatic staff at the facility where they are assigned.”

The NSA document viewed by Der Spiegel also proves that the intelligence missions are hidden: “For example antennas are sometimes hidden in false architectural features or roof maintenance sheds.”

It really isn’t enough to be outraged," German Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schanarrenberger told rbb-Inforadio this week. “This would be a signal that something can happen and make clear to the Americans that the [EU’s] policy is changing.”

Yet intelligence officers speaking to Fairfax Media now say that it is good to stop terrorism and international crime, “but the main focus is political, diplomatic and economic intelligence.”

The Dili city you have underlined here is in East Timor. South east of Indonesia.

[kit]

NSA, ‘Five Eyes’ use Australian embassies to gather intel on Asia

US intelligence agencies are using Australian embassies throughout Asia to intercept data and gather information across the continent, according to the latest report based on documents leaked by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.

Data collection facilities operate out of the embassies in Jakarta, Bangkok, Hanoi, Bejing, and Dili, according to Der Spiegel. There are also units in the Australian High Commission in Kuala Lumpur, the most populated city in Malaysia, and Port Moresby, the capital of Papua New Guinea.

The document, codenamed ‘STATEROOM,’ indicates the outfits “are small in size and in number of personnel staffing them...They are covert, and their true mission is not known by the majority of the diplomatic staff at the facility where they are assigned.”

The NSA document viewed by Der Spiegel also proves that the intelligence missions are hidden: “For example antennas are sometimes hidden in false architectural features or roof maintenance sheds.”

It really isn’t enough to be outraged," German Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schanarrenberger told rbb-Inforadio this week. “This would be a signal that something can happen and make clear to the Americans that the [EU’s] policy is changing.”

Yet intelligence officers speaking to Fairfax Media now say that it is good to stop terrorism and international crime, “but the main focus is political, diplomatic and economic intelligence.”

The Dili city you have underlined here is in East Timor. South east of Indonesia.[/quote]

ah ..one has to be a little too naive to think that the US embassy in Delhi is not used for covert purposes

the war against Terrorism did have a positive effect for the intelligence gathering capability of the US , not only they got a got dekko of the capabilities of countries like India but also a enormous amount of money and expertise feeding into an octopus whose tentacles are into military technological intelligence and political spheres


Quote : intelligence officers speaking to Fairfax Media now say that it is good to stop terrorism and international crime, “but the main focus is political, diplomatic and economic intelligence.”

[kit]

http://indianintelligence2009.blogspot. ... oices.html

facts can be stranger than fiction .. there is more to it than meets the eye

a strange story might be said about Mr Antony some time ..saints and sinners !

the pervasive influence of america on the most populous democracy would be indeed a story of how an elephant can be controlled by pressure at the right points

[PratikDas]

http://indianintelligence2009.blogspot. ... oices.html

facts can be stranger than fiction .. there is more to it than meets the eye

Not sure how long that blog will continue to exist. Quoting and saving here.

Part 1 : Three funerals and a wedding


Prologue

I was part of various analysis teams of Indian intelligence agencies during the 80’s and 90’s and now live a anonymous life in a distant land. What I am going to propagate over a 3 part series in the next few days might seem very farfetched and even fantastic to most people and many conspiracy theorists might gleefully accept it as vindication for whatever they have been screaming from rooftops for quite some time now. My attempt though is neither to please any one nor to prove someone else wrong or right; it is just to come out with the truth as we perceived it. Most of the theory that I am going to put forward in part 1 is the work of us 5 people in 1991 while analyzing all the intelligence inputs over the years in connection with the assassination of former Prime Minister Mr. Rajiv Gandhi. We in the intelligence parlays termed it as “the Rajiv brief”. Most conclusions that we had come up with were unanimous and unequivocal. I must hasten to add that many parts of this so called “the Rajiv brief” were also part of an earlier analysis done in the mid 80’s by another team investigating the conspiracy angle to Mrs Indira Gandhi’s death. Theoretic overlapping in terms of evidences, intelligence briefings and logical conclusions between these two analysis reports might be common, but there are also significant points of divergence in both of these reports and since I have been privy to both I would suggest that the number of points of convergence between both sets of analysis far outnumber the differences. Sometime in the middle of 1992 we were suddenly asked to debunk the whole theory and change our line of thinking by powers that be, and we had to let go of a “very strong” case that we were building then. Of the core group of 5 analysts who were working on that case, 3 are no more (all died of normal causes) and 2 of us are still living anonymously without being in touch with each other. This is my attempt (after almost 2 decades) to complete “the Rajiv brief” and take it to its logical conclusion with the benefit of hindsight. I must warn though, that this is at the end of the day, just a theory based on intelligence inputs and field analysis built on a very plausible premise. It is an attempt to fill in the blanks between the “if’s” and “buts” of history with the luxury of retrospective intelligence.

The Theory: Five people four scenarios and three events

Mrs Sonia Gandhi is today the most powerful person in India and probably one of the most powerful women on earth. Elections 2009 have only reinforced her power. How did she end up becoming the most powerful person in India? This is the story of that ascendancy. Five people, four scenarios and three events stood between Mrs Sonia Gandhi and her destiny. Over the next few pages I am going to explain those scenarios through the eyes of a former intelligence analyst.

Scenario 1: The Rajiv-Sonia marriage

At the outset there is nothing more than just another love story to Mr Rajiv Gandhi’s romance with Miss Antonia Albina Maino in the mid 1960’s. Any suggestion that there were characters in the Cambridge university campus that not only hooked them up but also nurtured the famous romance is too farfetched. But having said that, let us consider some of the London tabloid reports of that time which variously suggested Rajiv was “constantly influenced” by a couple of students of European origin (I would not take names and let researchers do some hard work) and that at least one of those students was later absorbed by the Vatican’s intelligence wing. It would also be farfetched to speculate on Indian intelligence requesting the help of MI5 to analyze the Rajiv-Sonia romance, at least am not aware of any such report ever being filed. All these rumours and theories have done their rounds in the intelligence quarters of Delhi, especially during 1991-1992, but then we are rushing ahead of time so we shall deal with that later. I would now present as to what intelligence agencies actually did, which was very little, and let people draw their own conclusion.

Background

Post World War 1, Turin was a hub of political activity. Communism was at its peak in Europe and many left leaning socialist organizations were dabbling with the Marxist ideology and as a counter balance to that the fascist forces were emerging as an attractive alternative to many Catholics of Italy, and Turin was no exception. The small village of Orbassano near Turin mainly composed of orthodox Roman Catholic families and they all dreaded the arrival of communists on their shores and decided to join hands with the fascists lead by Mussolini. Paolo Maino was one of them. Indian intelligence gathering techniques are never given their due credit, but we have done some first rate jobs which have never been acknowledged and Mrs Sonia Gandhi’s background check was one of them. It was found that after the end of Second World War when many fascists were purged, Paolo Maino was protected by the church and no less than the Vatican itself intervened in his case and all papers pertaining to him were there by transferred to the Vatican! It was furthermore established that one of the more mysterious uncles of Paolo Maino worked for the super secret intelligence organization of the Vatican, the Opus Dei. Paolo was a construction contractor and had little savings; he could not entirely afford the educational and other expenses of his children. This mysterious uncle; who was working for the Opus Dei and whose name had been deleted from all the intelligence files; sponsored Antonio Albina Maino’s education in Cambridge in the 1960’s.

During her stay in Cambridge Miss Antonio took an “unusually high degree” of interest in the activities of groups concerning students of Indian Diaspora much before she met Rajiv. In fact, their first meeting took place in the presence of other Indian origin students and not in a Greek cafe as widely reported later. But throughout all of this she continued her association with the church and its activities and was in constant touch with “certain sections of the Vatican” which were previously also associated with the fascists. When Indian intelligence officials later questioned one of Miss Antonio’s close associates during her stay in the Cambridge, he described her relationship with the Vatican as akin to “umbilical cord”. All of these titbits were filed by many field officers of various intelligence agencies over a period of years but most analysts in the intelligence parlays of India termed them as “innocent” at worst and “needs evaluation” at best. Of course one can always concede that the analysts of that era lack the luxury of retrospective analysis as we do have now, there was definitely some lax attitude shown by these analysts in trying to decipher these events. Thus one day in 1968, after 3 odd years of courtship Mr. Rajiv Gandhi and Miss Antonio Maino; the daughter of former Fascist soldier, Paolo Maino; were married in Delhi. Miss Maino then became Mrs Sonia Gandhi for all intentions and purposes and the stepping stone to her destiny was covered with roses.

Scenario 2: Event 1, June 23rd 1980

The first player in the political theatre to have been eliminated and also the most important first link to the series of events that led to the present dispensation in the corridors of Delhi. Circumstantial evidence in the June 23rd 1980 Sanjay Gandhi air crash near Safdarjung airport points to foul play but let’s not get sucked into those futile arguments that have been raging ever since. Just suffice it to say that the single-member enquiry commission headed by Mr M L Jain which was formed to study the circumstances that lead to the plane crash has never submitted any report what so ever to the government in 3 decades. Now isn’t that fishy?

Background

Anybody who is aware of the 70’s brand of politics in India would know that Sanjay was the most important political centre, around whom most of the power was concentrated and dispensed with. Many even believed that Sanjay wielded more power than Indira Gandhi herself. It thus became pertinent for most intelligence agencies concerned with India’s affairs to have a thick case file about Sanjay Gandhi and his activities. There were some widely debunked theories of the junior Gandhi leaning towards CIA and Mrs Gandhi not being in agreement with his ideas, I do not know the origin or the veracities of these hypotheses so I would not make any comment either to encourage or discourage them. The 1960’s and 70’s Delhi was a hub of international espionage (like any other capital of any other country) because most intelligence agencies (including CIA & KGB) of that era depended on HUMINT or human intelligence officers to gather intelligence rather than satellites and drones of today. Every other day there would be speculation in the media circles of a certain politician or a certain bureaucrat working in tandem with a certain foreign intelligence agency; I would be lying if I claimed that all these speculations were wrong, in fact there were quite a few surprises in the “official” list that the Indian intelligence agencies maintained, but that is a completely different subject altogether. Coming back to Sanjay Gandhi and the interest that he generated in foreign as well as Indian intelligence circles, one thing is clear, he never worked or had any relationship with any of the foreign intelligence agencies and that much I can vouch for, but the same cannot be said about his continuous indulgence and interference with the local intelligence agencies. He always used and had his men in various wings of Indian intelligence agencies. Amidst all of this originated the “Russian hypothesis”.

There is no agreement as to when the real “Russian hypothesis” came into being, some argue that just prior to emergency in 1975 the Soviets sponsored this study because they had prior intelligence that emergency would be imposed on India, while still others argue that its origin was sometime during the Morarji Desai regime. I for one tend to agree with the former because it is a known fact that Soviets were consulted by Mrs Gandhi about emergency. Another reason to support the 1975 theory is that a secret meeting of the dreaded VKR had taken place in Delhi in the summer of 1975 (VKR = Voennaya Kontra Razvedka) and it had baffled many Indian intelligence officials as to why VKR (Russian counter intelligence wing) would meet in India. After the imposition of emergency and the awareness about Mrs Gandhi’s soviet consultation, intelligence circles widely accepted the theory of VKR meeting in Delhi as a part of that Indo-Soviet collaboration on emergency until the emergence of the “Russian hypothesis” and the eventual demise of Mr. Sanjay Gandhi. KGB had strong presence in Delhi and across India in the 70’s and many left-leaning analysts openly and covertly co-operated with KGB and other Russian intelligence agencies. One such “analyst” was part of the team that had produced the “Russian hypothesis” and he later (in 1979) leaked parts of that document to Indian intelligence and that is how the jigsaw puzzle was cracked. In the hypothesis it was concluded that Mr Sanjay Gandhi was west leaning and a capitalist and would eventually side with the CIA, although there was no universal agreement about these conclusions amongst the team that had produced the “Russian hypothesis” most of them did agree to some extent of those conclusions. It was our belief that the Soviets had decided not to take any action, mainly because of the fact that it was unlikely of KGB and even more unlikely in the case of VKR to remain quiet for more than a few months after having reached a conclusion. This is when Opus Dei comes into picture. It is a well known fact that Opus Dei and parts of Russian intelligence had always collaborated on certain matters. Exactly how or when did Opus Dei come into the possession of “Russian hypothesis” is merely in the realm of speculation but what is incontrovertible is that the Vatican intelligence did have enormous influence on Josef Stavinoha, the man who was heading VKR at that time and thus KGB in active collaboration with Opus Dei decided to act on the “Russian hypothesis” sometime in March 1980. As a direct result of that, June 23rd 1980 happened as an accident.

Continuum

After the sudden demise of Mr Sanjay Gandhi, there was the question of two other people, the very political wife Mrs Maneka Gandhi and son Mr Varun Gandhi which had to be dealt with by the Gandhi family. While there is no denying the fact that Mrs Indira Gandhi and her daughter in law Mrs Maneka Gandhi had a less than cordial relationship (which was more accentuated after the arrival of Rajiv’s family, as per some household sources of the family) and usually had typical “saas-bahu” war of turfs, but what is also irrefutable is the fact that Mr Varun Gandhi was Mrs Gandhi’s favourite grandson and she simply doted on him. What exactly transpired and who facilitated the events are all debates of speculation for the tabloid media, but one thing is certain, both the widowed mother and son were completely sidelined and almost ceased to exist as far as the Gandhi family is concerned after ceremoniously being thrown out of the Prime Minister’s residence.

Scenario 3: 1984, the assassination of Mrs Indira Gandhi

It was one of those events in the young life of a nation that can be termed as a defining moment in history. At the outset it was a clear case of Khalistani fundamentalists avenging operation blue-star, but there were many characters at the periphery and many events preceding it which raised many an eyebrow in the intelligence communities of the world. This was also that one colossal event that catapulted the young Mr Rajiv Gandhi, a novice in politics, to the highest seat of power in South Asia and Mrs Sonia Gandhi was now the next in the line of succession by the virtue of being his wife.

Background

It is a historically well known fact that the Khalistan movement was nurtured by ISI and certain elements in Pakistan. Also well recorded are the initial reactions of some western countries like Canada who almost directly hobnobbed with the Sikh separatist leaders only to abandon them when the movement became increasingly violent. Tacit support of US and British intelligence agencies to the Khalistan intelligentsia was also much speculated upon those days. But what was a lesser known fact in the media and a matter of puzzling debates in the intelligence circles was the interest shown by the Vatican in the Khalistan movement. In 1980-81 Vatican had an open channel of discussions with certain groups of the so called “intellectuals” who were known sympathisers of the Sikh separatist movements. This interest and interactions continued well into the early 80’s and were explained as the “right of Vatican to have an interest in other religious organizations”. At the height of Khalistan movement just after operation Blue Star, many reliable Indian intelligence sources had given “definitive” information about Opus Dei funding parts of operations of Sikh separatists outside India!

After operation Blue Star there were many intelligence inputs about the threat to Mrs Gandhi’s life including some specific inputs about people in the core inner circle of Mrs Gandhi’s security system being vulnerable. Yet no action was taken, why? The assassination of Mrs Indira Gandhi was a massive intelligence failure to say the least and yet no major enquiry was ordered to decipher the conspiracy theory, why? Sections of KGB and other Russian intelligence agencies had given a specific timeframe regarding “action” and yet their advice went unheeded, why? Soviet sources, in informal briefings had warned about certain western intelligence agencies being in cahoots with Sikh separatists and yet those warnings were disregarded, why?
A part of the answer to those questions can be explained as plain incompetence as usual. May be one can also argue that we now have the power of hindsight which we lacked then. But definitely there is a part of the answer to that question which is more complex and only takes my theory forward to its logical conclusion. It is not as if we did nothing, security experts and Intelligence aficionados gave at least 2 formal specific presentations to Mrs Gandhi on 2 different occasions about the need to re-haul the entire security apparatus around her. But on both these occasions apart from Mrs Gandhi’s nonchalance we met with the biggest resistance from one particular member of her core team. He was a very powerful member of what was then known to the media as “kitchen cabinet” and had also been described as a “power broker of the highest degree” by many media houses and visiting dignitaries. There was no reason to suspect any mal-intentions in him, as he was also known to be very close to Mr Rajiv Gandhi (unlike some members of the “kitchen cabinet” who had a turf war with the junior Gandhi). Post assassination there was a bit of a stir in the media about the same gentleman followed by hush-hush events. We in the intelligence were also surprised to know about his strong linkages with certain Western intelligence agencies. Nothing really happened after that for quite some time and Mr Rajiv Gandhi only restored the same gentleman back in his team with full honours and the whole episode was laid to rest. But the biggest revelation to the intelligence wings came a little later (and was not accorded much importance at that time). Unlike media perceptions that the said gentleman belonged to the Rajiv Gandhi coterie and to the “kitchen cabinet”, he actually owed both his positions and his re-instatement into the inner circles of power after the assassination of Mrs Gandhi to a certain Mrs Sonia Gandhi!

Scenario 4: 1991, the assassination of Mr Rajiv Gandhi

When Mr Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated in Sriperumbudur on 21st May 1991, it did come as a shock to the intelligence community in India but it would be false to suggest that we had absolutely no clue about it. Tamil Tigers animosity towards Mr Rajiv Gandhi was by no means a universally accepted fact in the intelligence circles and yet there were “elements” in the establishment who had assessed the risk factors from time to time. Many analysts had pointed out way back in 1985 (when Rajiv first tried to establish channels to tigers) the unpredictable nature of the leadership of LTTE and their perceived closeness to “certain” European and Western intelligence agencies. Mr Rajiv Gandhi was more influenced by a section of foreign policy analysts and he paid little heed to whatever little reservations the Indian intelligence agencies had vis-à-vis Tamil Tigers. I must confess that intelligence community in India did not really cover themselves in glory in this whole episode, because it might come as a surprise to most readers to know that we had threat perception for Mr Rajiv Gandhi from many other quarters like Sikh separatists, Islamic (Pakistani funded) militant groups, Chinese sponsored mercenaries and even rogue KGB agents, but had very few inputs and analysis about Tamil Tigers! That was a grave error to say the least. Due to myriad intelligence inputs and even more complex analysis the enquiry following the assassination was mired in many ideas and was muddled in too many complexities.

Background

The Rajiv Gandhi era was defined by two major geo-political changes in India and South Asia;
· Pakistan’s involvement with separatist groups in Kashmir and the birth of Islamic terrorism in the valley
·
India’s direct mediation in Sri Lanka vis-à-vis Tamil issue

Both these geo-political affairs in South Asia had linkages to Western intelligence agencies at some point or other. It is a well known fact that CIA did help Kashmiri terror outfits in the initial years ostensibly to decrease Soviet influence in the region and also because US intelligence establishments were day dreaming about controlling all forms of Islamic extremist organisations from Afghanistan and Central Asia to the Middle-East and Western Africa. The results of those ill-fated forays have been disastrous as we have seen today, but that is a different story for some other time. Lesser known fact is the support to LTTE by many European intelligence agencies including MI5 & NIS (Norwegian Intelligence Service). Thus, although Mr Rajiv Gandhi considered Mr Vellupali Prabhakaran as a personal friend, the LTTE leader was more under the influence of many other intelligence organisations than India which should have been his natural ally. If the Western intelligence agencies wanted to eliminate Mr Rajiv Gandhi (for whatever myriad reasons) they had 2 very plausible ways to achieve their hit; Islamic Terror outfits in Kashmir and LTTE; apart from many other difficult options. LTTE having assassinated Mr Rajiv Gandhi unilaterally can be ruled out for all practical purposes as it was too much under the influence and control of many agencies and also it would have needed a thorough assurance that its own organization would not be eliminated following the assassination. Mr Prabhakaran, whatever else he was, was a practical man with very sensible ideas to survive for a long term struggle for Tamil Elam. He would have realized at the very outset that eliminating Mr Rajiv Gandhi could become an existential threat to LTTE itself. He had the precedence of the Khalistan movement being crushed following Mrs Indira Gandhi’s assassination and the might of IPKF, which had almost managed to destroy about 80% of LTTE.

Mr Prabhakaran apart from being Tamil was also a catholic and there is a theory that the Vatican had helped LTTE in the initial phases to establish a “catholic” land in the Northern parts of Sri Lanka independent of the “Buddhist” Sinhalese regime. I have many intelligence inputs to confirm these linkages between the Vatican and the LTTE. Norway which had always played a role in the Sri Lankan peace process had a commanding influence over LTTE, especially over the northern faction of LTTE comprising Prabhakaran and co. Norwegian intelligence or NIS had not only given financial assistance but also had provided military training and logistical support to many northern LTTE command groups. I must state here that the western part of LTTE led by Karuna and co was less under the influence of these organisations and was more open to collaboration with India. There was also an unconfirmed report that Karuna was against the whole plot to assassinate Mr Rajiv Gandhi and had even tried in vain to contact Indian intelligence agencies about the impending attack. NIS and other Scandinavian intelligence agencies in the 80’s and early 90’s were also heavily under the influence of Opus Dei and other intelligence establishments of the Vatican. There were many reasons for this, primary being the fact Norway’s borders with Soviet Russia and the Opus Dei’s final plans to liberate the orthodox Russian church from the communists. Finally, we have very strong intelligence inputs about NIS having given the final order of a “hit” on Mr Rajiv Gandhi and also the requisite assurance of “no-attack” from India on LTTE in any eventuality. Thus Prabhakaran decided to assassinate Mr Rajiv Gandhi despite internal opposition and many apprehensions. What is even more curious was the timing of attack (which was also a pre-condition by the Norwegian controllers of LTTE as per many intercepts of Russian intelligence revealed to India much later). It was as if someone wanted to influence the ensuing general elections in India by assassinating a tall leader (they had the precedent of 1985 elections following Mrs Gandhi’s killing). But, they only partly succeeded in that as congress could not get a majority on its own which was partially due to the fact that a part of those elections were held before the event and partially due to the changed political scenario of India in the beginning of the 90’s.

The Analysis

After the assassination many intelligence teams were working on many number of theories and officially SIT (special investigation team) was formed to fast track the whole process and at least theoretically all these intelligence teams were supposed to be working under the aegis of the SIT. We were a group of 5 analysts working on the conspiracy angle (there were other groups of people also working on many conspiracy theories) leading up to the assassination. This is when we first stumbled upon the theory of the Vatican’s interest in India’s 1st family (the Gandhi family), which was earlier researched by a team previously working on the killing of senior Mrs Gandhi. Layer by layer we were gathering all the previous inputs and seemingly farfetched hypothesises put forward by many people in the past. Most of the inputs that I have talked about till now throughout this paper (part 1) were discovered and analysed during those 6 months when we worked together in that team. Mr P. V. Narasimha Rao was the Prime Minister of India then and he had made it a point to get all the reports on the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case delivered to him directly (with no intermediaries) at regular intervals. I remember it correctly, when we had sent our detailed analysis report with all the relevant intelligence inputs to the PMO on a Thursday afternoon. The report contained all the various theories that we had suggested but we had not reached any conclusions.

The first time it’s a chance, the second time it’s a coincidence and the third time it’s a pattern. I guess it was just a matter of time before we would reach the conclusion that the sole beneficiary of all these scenarios and events was the one and only Mrs Sonia Gandhi, the widow of Mr Rajiv Gandhi. How 3 events (assassination & “unnatural” deaths of the three Gandhis) and the 4 scenarios involving 5 people who were either eliminated or completely sidelined leading to the final destiny of Mrs Sonia Gandhi is really a fascinating story. On Monday morning our team was dismantled, we were asked to work on another theory of CIA’s involvement with the LTTE and about understanding the financial structuring of the Tamil Tigers and we were told in no uncertain terms to abandon our “farfetched” theories and to work on more “realistic” aspects that would provide more tangible results.

After that we never mentioned about “the Rajiv brief” or about what had happened in those 6 months. But I have been keeping track of events since then. One important loophole about the theory as explained till now would be the reluctance of Mrs Sonia Gandhi to accept the position of power after the 1991 elections. I would like to deal with the post Rajiv era in part 2 when I will hopefully explain all of those issues. I have formulated my own set of theories and have reached my own conclusions, but they will be elaborated upon in the next 2 parts of this treatise.
... To be continued.
POSTED BY EX INDIAN INTELLIGENCE AT 8:33 AM

[wig]

iPads have been banned from UK Cabinet meetings due to fears of foreign intelligence agencies bugging confidential meetings

The securities services fear foreign intelligence agencies have developed the ability to turn mobile devices such as phones and tablets into bugs without the owner’s knowledge, allowing them to eavesdrop on confidential meetings.
iPads were used this week during a presentation by Francis Maude, the Cabinet Office minister, on how the Government Digital Service could save the Government £2bn a year.
But after the presentation they were swiftly removed by No 10’s security staff to prevent Cabinet discussions being picked up, according to a report in the Mail on Sunday.

It is feared China, Russia, Iran and Pakistan have developed the ability to turn mobiles into microphones and turn
=============================
them into transmitters even when they are turned off, using a Trojan computer virus.
Ministers in sensitive government departments have been issued with soundproof lead-lined boxes, which they must place their mobiles in when having sensitive conversations, it emerged this week.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politic ... fears.html

[chetak]

Willing to bet anything that these latest "Indian" citizens will get their aadhar cards well before most of us.


Burmese Muslim refugees in Delhi, search for haven in J&K

Thousands of Rohingya Muslims have taken refuge in India after fleeing deadly religious persecution and massacre in Burma, which has wiped out village after village in these last few years. Though the exact number of these "infiltrators" is not known, it is estimated to be in the range of 20,000-25,000. The Rohingyas have spread into places like Delhi, Jammu, Noida, Mewat (Haryana), Saharanpur, Muzaffarnagar, Aligarh, Hyderabad and Mumbai. In Delhi, they live in the slums of Kalindi Kunj, Khajuri, Nizamuddin and in neighbouring Noida. Their largest settlement is in Jammu, where around 2,300 Rohingyas live in subhuman conditions in makeshift tents. The Centre, which has finally woken up to the plight of these people, has started giving visas and refugee cards to them.

According to Mohd Haroon, who sneaked into Indian territory illegally through the India-Bangladesh border, at least five "infiltrators" living in Kalindi Kunj have got visas that are valid until 2016, while another 100 have got refugee cards. "We are being called by the UN Refugee Agency in phases, for verification and processing of our documents," he said.

Haroon, an erstwhile resident of Mangdu Boosidang area of Burma, said he had no choice but to flee the country because of the communal violence there. He, his wife and five children came to India two years ago. Haroon is coordinating with different social organisations to ensure that Rohingyas get refugee status from the Indian government.

Haroon told The Sunday Guardian team, which visited the Kalindi Kunj slum, "We would have been killed in Burma, therefore, we decided to come to India. We first sneaked into Bangladesh, where we spent three-four months, after which we entered India, with the help of a dalal (tout)." "Now that the process of giving visas and refugee cards has begun, we hope Rohingyas will soon start getting assistance in the form of ration and health facilities provided by the United Nations," he said.

Another refugee, Omar Hamza, who teaches children at the Kalindi Kunj shelter, which houses 206 people, said, "Living conditions here are bad. There are no proper toilets or drinking water facilities. We started constructing a toilet following an assurance from some organisations, but there was controversy and the police arrested one of us. As we have started getting refugee cards, we hope the situation will improve now. The government is sympathetic to us. We do not want to return to Burma as we might get killed there."

Narrating her tale, an 18-year-old Rohingya, Tasleema said, "While sneaking into India, I got separated from my family (touts generally arrange the entry of the infiltrators in parts), who got stuck in Bangladesh. I was then taken to Jammu, where I was sold to someone. However, I managed to speak to Zafar, my cousin, who lives in Delhi, who rescued me and brought me here."

In Kalindi Kunj, the Rohingyas have earmarked a small place where they can offer namaaz. One of them has opened a shop inside the slum, where he sells stuff for daily use such as biscuits, snacks, chocolates and bread. Most of them work as daily wage labourers.

The issue of giving refugee status to Rohingyas has been pending for some time. In May last year, Rohingyas from all over the country demonstrated outside the UN Refugee Agency's office at Vasant Vihar, in New Delhi. They got support from a few local groups as well as Maulana Mahmood Madani's Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind. "After the demonstration, many families started living around the Shahi Masjid area in Vasant Vihar, Gori Masjid near Dhaula Kuan and also near the UN Refugee Agency office. However, as locals objected to their presence, they migrated to other areas. Most of them have migrated to Jammu now," said Ghayyur Ahmad Qasmi, a Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind functionary, who has been coordinating with the authorities on the Rohingyas.


Rohingya Muslims in a Jammu camp | Photo: Savita Thakur
Mahmood Madani, who had met the then Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram requesting him to grant Rohingyas refugee status, said he would like to ensure that these people get UN relief materials.

The IGP of Jammu region, Rajesh Kumar Yadav told this newspaper that the Rohingyas are living in the slums of Rajeev Nagar and Qasim Nagar, along the railway tracks at Brahmi Brahamana and Trikuta Nagar. According to the police, the Rohingyas settled in Jammu in large numbers because they were convinced by some people that they would thus be able to cross the International Border and enter Pakistan, where they would have a better life.

A police officer said that many of them were arrested while trying to cross into Pakistan. "Most of them are doing petty jobs as labourers while their womenfolk and children are living in slums. The J&K government is not providing them with any relief or assistance, though they are getting some assistance from some charitable organisations," said the officer.

The J&K Sakhawat Centre has recently provided them with medicines and blankets and other essential commodities. One of the volunteers of the organisation told this newspaper that they did not have access to hospitals and schools.

Rajesh Kumar Yadav said, "They are being monitored closely, but they are not indulging in any criminal activities."

With inputs from Noor-ul-Qamrain in Srinagar

[manjgu]

i was talking to special branch officer of delhi police..he was saying they are being hosted in mosques in okhla area...!! bugers are having biryani for lunch !! bahut badiya desh hai hindustan...!!

[vishvak]

How is this possible when Indians outside J&K can't own properties in J&K. UN handling refugee issue & ignoring infiltration into J&K is itself becoming part of problem on one hand, while on the other hand dragging illegitimate claims of pakis w.r.t. J&K in UN court.

[chetak]

i was talking to special branch officer of delhi police..he was saying they are being hosted in mosques in okhla area...!! bugers are having biryani for lunch !! bahut badiya desh hai hindustan...!!

election time onlee

[sum]

X-post:

What was known all along ( and what GoI has supressed till now):

Exclusive! Who is ISI's Honey Bee in New Delhi?

Levy, in an exclusive interview to Rediff.com, said he tried hard to detect the identity of this Indian mole, but he is yet to succeed. The authors have dubbed the Indian ISI mole 'Honey Bee' in their book.

They claim that Major Iqbal of the ISI, who was David Coelman Headley's handler in Pakistan, organised a condensed version of the Pakistan army's two-year training course on surveillance and counter-intelligence.

The course was prepared on the basis of the Indian Army's training manual supplied by the Indian mole to the ISI.

Headley, the mastermind behind the Mumbai terror attacks, along with the Lashkar-e-Tayiba, successfully mounted the attack that killed 166 people and wounded hundreds more.

In a sensational claim, the authors write that 'Major Iqbal' had given Headley what is described as 'classic Indian files'. Iqbal boasted that he had obtained these files from the Indian police and army, which 'revealed their training and limitations.'

Levy believes that while the ISI's source in India is unlikely to be from the army, it could be someone from the Indian security establishment other than the army.

Iqbal boasted that they had 'a super agent' at work in New Delhi who was known as Honey Bee.

In addition to Honey Bee, Levy also claims there were people in Mumbai codenamed 'chuhas' (mice) who supplemented information and added to the details Headley provided to the Lashkar to plan the terror attacks in Mumbai.

"The LeT claims there were 10 collaborators working in Mumbai," says Levy.

The Ram Pradhan Commission of Inquiry, set up to probe the terror attacks, failed in its duty when it did not examine the 'local element,' Levy added. "The Pakistan side told me there exists Honey Bee and chuhas. The Indian side should have established their identity."

Before Headley started his journey to Mumbai to find a landing site for the terrorists, Levy claims that Major Iqbal gave him a bundle of counterfeit Indian rupees and revealed that Honey Bee, the ISI's Indian mole, had told him that Machchimar Nagar, a fishing colony in Cuffe Parade in south Mumbai, could be the landing site for their anti-India mission.

The spot was apparently suggested by the Indian mole as it does not have much of security, and Major Iqbal asked Headley to check it out.

[Austin]

he book Spies from Space: The Isro Frame-up detailed how the real traitors in the Isro espionage case were CIA moles in India’s Intelligence Bureau. Is that why the book quickly disappeared from bookstores?

Why My Book Didn’t Sell

In 1997, a written statement issued jointly by five scientists—Sathish Dhawan, UR Rao, Yashpal, Rodham Narasimha and K Chandrasekhar—and TN Seshan gave me the first hint of ‘outside interference’ in the case. Dhawan and Rao were former Isro chairmen and sitting members of the Space Commission. Projected against the historicity of India’s hunt for acquiring cryogenic technology and the hurdles posed by America to block the transfer of technology, the statement implied that this ‘outside interference’ was from the US.

The nucleus, I argue, was hatched by the CIA to safeguard US commercial interests, and planted through its moles in the IB, using the Kerala police as a conduit.

That there are moles of the CIA in the IB may be difficult to believe. But it is a fact. Certain incidents happened in the IB, parallel to the build-up of the Isro espionage case, which have not been explained by the Government or explored by the media.

[Austin]

I recollect in the 90 at the height if ISRO spy scandal , IB was hell bent on proving these scientist were not just spies in ISRO but also involved in spying on IN VLF station , while CBI though entered late was defending the scientist stating IB allegation were nothing but CT , so it was a war between one govt org versus the other with their respective credibility at stake.

[ramana]

Austin that is what it appeared but in effect IB was acting for massa. There was woman finally expelled from Madras Consulate.
The Dy DIR of IB Rattan Sehgal was also forced to resign or retire early.

BTW ScribD has the book:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/182784093/SPI ... O-FRAME-UP

[abhischekcc]

If GOI's Ram Pradhan committee did not investigate the local element, then it was a cover up operation. IOW, (parts of) GOI was complicit in the attacks.

[RajD]

If GOI's Ram Pradhan committee did not investigate the local element, then it was a cover up operation. IOW, (parts of) GOI was complicit in the attacks.

If I'm not mistaken and remember correctly, soon after taking charge of the central home dept. Mr. Chadambaram had said in his very first statement on the issue (before any investigations) that his dept. had ruled out /deny any possibility of the local support( logistical or otherwise) to the terrorists to plan and execute the attack. It is to be noted here that Mr. Hassan Gafoor, the then C. P., Mumbai had to make a hasty retreat after airing his views on the investigation of the possibility of local support to the attackers.
Regards.
Rajendra

[Philip]

Amazing! The NSA,who has the ear of the PM and PMO bemoans the insufficient budget as the reason why terror attacks are prevalent! But who is to blame for this? Surely the regime that has been ruining the country for the last 9 years?

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/indi ... 530728.cms

Attacks linked to low internal security budget: Shivshankar Menon
Rohan Dua, TNN | Nov 10, 2013,

CHANDIGARH: National security advisor Shivshankar Menon, on Saturday, blamed low budget allocation for internal security for the repeated terror attacks in India even as he defended the failure of intelligence saying India had foiled 54 terror bids in 2012. "The budget for internal security is just 1/7th of the defence budget. So the problem lies here," he said in Chandigarh.

Menon, however, said that "there were a lot of success in thwarting terror attempts despite a low budget for internal security". "We can't talk about individual cases of failure in states. But overall, we managed to foil about 52-54 terror attempts. I think this record is impressive," he said.

Menon was replying to a query on the Intelligence Bureau (IB) alert on Pakistan's spy agency ISI trying to fan communal tensions by reviving Khalistan radicalism and targeting Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi.

Menon was in Chandigarh to deliver a lecture on science and security at the 79th annual meeting of Indian Academy of Sciences at the Institute of Microbiology Technology (IMTECH) of Panjab University.

For 2013-2014, the UPA government had hiked defence allocation by 5.3% to Rs 2,03,672.1 crore while the overall allocation to the home ministry saw an increase of Rs 6,767 crore from Rs 47,681 crore in 2011-2012 to Rs 54,448 crore. According to global terrorism index, published in December 2012 by the US and Australia-based institute for economics and peace, India was among the top five countries most affected by terrorism. The other four were Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Yemen.

[AdityaM]

PMO unconcerned about scientist deaths

there has been substantial international media comment on the unnatural deaths of several scientists working in Iran's nuclear program, similar attention has not been paid to the (much larger) number of unnatural deaths that have taken place of scientists and engineers working in India's own nuclear program

Scientists working in the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) have been particularly liable to "suicides" and murders, with several being reported during the past five years.

over just a three-year period, there have been at least nine unnatural deaths of scientists and engineers at just BARC as well as the Kaiga nuclear facility, of which two have been categorised as suicide, with the rest unexplained

[VinodTK]

From Times O India: Top Israeli general in India to discuss military ties

NEW DELHI: India and Israel continue to silently expand their already extensive ties in the fields of defence and homeland security, with Israeli chief of land forces major general Guy Zur now in New Delhi on a four-day visit.


Maj-Gen Zur on Tuesday held talks with defence minister A K Antony, Army chief General Bikram Singh, Navy chief Admiral D K Joshi and IAF chief Air chief marshal N A K Browne, among others, to discuss measures to bolster bilateral defence cooperation.

While regional and global security situation figured in the talks, the focus was on bilateral defence training programmes, exchanges, R&D projects and armament deals. "The two countries, which share similar challenges of terrorism, have strong military and defence trade ties," said an officer.

The Israeli general will also be visiting the Para establishment in Agra and the Army's Southwestern Command in Jaipur during his visit here. "He has invited Gen Bikram Singh to visit Israel," he said.

Israel is India's second largest defence supplier, second only to Russia, but the ties are largely kept under wraps due to political sensitivities. Tel Aviv records military sales worth around $1 billion to New Delhi every year, ranging from Heron and Searcher UAVs, Harpy and Harop "killer" drones to Green Pine radars, Python and Derby air-to-air missiles.

Two major joint projects, however, are running way behind schedule. The first one is the development of the long-range SAM (LR-SAM) project, sanctioned in December 2005 at a cost of Rs 2,606 crore, to arm Indian warships. The second is the even bigger Rs 10,076 crore medium-range SAM (MR-SAM) project, sanctioned in February 2009, for air defence squadrons of IAF.

Both the SAM systems, being developed by Israeli Aerospace Industries (IAI) in collaboration with DRDO, have the same missile with an interception range of 70-km. They are to be produced in bulk by defence PSU Bharat Dynamics (BDL) to plug the existing gaping holes in India's air defence cover.

India is also interested in ordering another two advanced Israeli Phalcon AWACS (airborne warning and control systems) aircraft, capable of detecting hostile aircraft, cruise missiles and other incoming aerial threats far before ground-based radars, but the huge cost escalation has slowed down things. The first three Phalcon AWACS were inducted by IAF in 2009-2010 under the $1.1 billion tripartite agreement among India, Israel and Russia.

[ramana]

I dont get it. When the chief of Israeli land forces is visiting India what kind of dim with will talk about all the arms sales agreements between the two countries? Only first four paras are to the point. Rest is fluff.

[anmol]

arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/11/despite-lack-of-science-tsa-spent-millions-on-behavioral-detection-officers/

TSA’s got 94 signs to ID terrorists, but they’re unproven by science
by Nate Anderson, arstechnica.com
November 13th 2013 7:25 PM

Science! Forget subjective screening, which too often slides into racial and ethnic profiling; instead, evaluate travelers entering an airport using a rigorous set of objective measurements that could spot deception. This was the admirable principle behind the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) program known as Screening of Passengers by Observation Techniques (SPOT), which has been operating at airports around the country since 2007 at a total cost of $900 million—or about $200 million a year.

Unfortunately, according to the US government's internal watchdog agency, little real science stands behind the program. In a new report (PDF) released today, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) concluded that "the human ability to accurately identify deceptive behavior based on behavioral indicators is the same as or slightly better than chance." And it dryly noted that programs like SPOT should be "demonstrated to work reliably in their intended environment prior to program deployment."
94 problems

SPOT relies on a network of 3,000 behavior detection officers (BDOs) deployed at 176 airports around the country. BDOs observe passengers waiting to cross security checkpoints into the "sterile" section of an airport. They are trained to observe 94 different signs of stress, fear, and deception, with the goal of calculating a "point total" for an observed individual in less than 30 seconds. The 94 signs remain a secret, but we do know that anyone displaying enough of them is referred for a patdown and secondary screening, during which officers will engage in "casual conversation" to determine whether the traveler poses a potential threat. (The secondary screenings take an average of 13 minutes.) If so, law enforcement officers such as police or FBI agents are brought in to deal with the situation and potentially make an arrest.

In 2008, the official TSA blog explained the program:

The program was designed by Paul Ekman (PhD), a psychology professor at the University of California Medical School, San Francisco. He’s been studying behavioral analysis for the past 40 years and has taught the TSA, Customs and Border Protection, CIA, FBI and other federal agencies to watch for suspicious facial expressions of tension, fear or deception. He has even taught animators at Disney-Pixar to create convincing faces for film characters. After passing along his skills to US Customs, their "hit rate" for finding drugs during passenger searches rose to 22.5 percent from 4.2 percent in 1998.

Behavior analysis is based on the fear of being discovered. People who are trying to get away with something display signs of stress through involuntary physical and physiological behaviors. Whether someone’s trying to sneak through that excellent stone ground mustard they bought on vacation, a knife, or a bomb, behavior detection officers like me are trained to spot certain suspicious behaviors out of the crowd. Once we make our determination, we refer these passengers for additional screening or directly to law enforcement.

It sounds pretty science-y, but it turns out that, in practice, BDOs across the country are referring passengers for secondary screenings at very different rates. For a program based on "objective" biometric measurements of deception, this is not the result one would hope to see. (Even the TSA admitted to GAO auditors that some of the observations were "subjective"; it is trying to rein these in.) And Ekman, who helped set up the program, told GAO three years ago that no one knew "how many BDOs are required to observe a given number of passengers moving at a given rate per day in an airport environment, or the length of time that such observation can be conducted before observation fatigue affects the effectiveness of the personnel."

For the report, GAO auditors looked at the outside scientific literature, speaking to behavioral researchers and examining meta-analyses of 400 separate academic studies on unmasking liars. That literature suggests that "the ability of human observers to accurately identify deceptive behavior based on behavioral cues or indicators is the same as or slightly better than chance (54 percent)." That result holds whether or not the observer is a member of law enforcement.

It turns out that all of those signs you instinctively "know" to indicate deception usually don't. Lack of eye contact for instance simply does not correlate with deception when examined in empirical studies. Nor do increases in body movements such as tapping fingers or toes; the literature shows that people's movements actually decrease when lying. A 2008 study for the Department of Defense found that "no compelling evidence exists to support remote observation of physiological signals that may indicate fear or nervousness in an operational scenario by human observers."

Despite the academic literature, the TSA actually began testing the SPOT program in 2003—not with an eye toward finding out if it worked, but with an eye toward seeing if it was practical to run in a major airport. In 2007, the program went live and travelers underwent screening. Once the program was set up in 2007, the TSA did hire an outside consultant to evaluate the system's effectiveness. The resulting study, published in 2011, found some effectiveness in using the SPOT criteria. Due to various weaknesses in the study design and implementation, however, GAO doesn't dub it a reliable guide to evaluating SPOT.

But even if it works, in practice SPOT isn't stopping terrorists—it has largely led to arrests for drug crime, immigration violations, and outstanding warrants. Because the signs of deception and stress tell you nothing about the underlying activity meant to be concealed, an effective SPOT program would simply become a general dragnet focused on air travelers. In 2008, the TSA argued that this wasn't a problem:

Some will say that it shouldn’t be TSA’s job to look for drugs, or money - our job is airport security. But when we spot someone behaving suspiciously, we don’t know what they have; all we know is they’re behaving in a way that says they might pose a threat. In many cases, we find things that might have otherwise gotten through security (money, drugs) and that’s a good sign because it could just as easily been plastic or liquid explosives. The behaviors these drug and currency smugglers exhibit are the same behaviors we expect a terrorist to exhibit.

But of course, according to the GAO, SPOT may not even work—we simply don't know.

The GAO's conclusion from all this is damning. "Ten years after the development of the SPOT program, TSA cannot demonstrate the effectiveness of its behavior detection activities," it wrote. "Until TSA can provide scientifically validated evidence demonstrating that behavioral indicators can be used to identify passengers who may pose threat to aviation security, the agency risks funding activities that have not been determined to be effective." The title of the report sums up the GAO recommendation: "TSA Should Limit Future Funding for Behavior Detection Activities."

For its part, the TSA insists the program works, and it is currently running more studies to evaluate effectiveness.

[ramana]

I think this is a fancy racial profiling/sterotyping.
And has failed to show any results jst as the plain vanilla sterotyping has also failed.

[NRao]

An Israeli - IIRC a head of their security organization - stated that the problem was with the way the project was implemented and not with the method r teh technologies. Israel he stated used the same and had done very well. (Want to say I saw it on ABC News last night.)

[ramana]

A disturbing phenomenon in US is the availability of custom ordered Hollyoowd studio quality facial masks. A spate of robberies in NYC and some cross border migrations have been noted.

Let me re-imagine this in Indian context. Knowing the Indian propensity to give goras more hawa, Paki terrorists could use such masks to pass off as goras and make it thorugh legal channels to carry out thier forays. And even more worrisome is have SDRE masks and mingle in the crowds after an attack.

[NRao]

I think the real solution to a Pakistan attack - in any form - is to retaliate without consideration of world opinion.

That Indians themselves are not helping themselves is another topic of greater concern. Corrupt officials and Dawood gangs (inside India) do not help India.

I just hope India does not rely too much on technologies, although they do have their rightful place. Relying on technologies to the extent that they dominate our lives is over analyzing - best to take the shortest distance between two points.

But, ...........................

[VinodTK]

From Times Of India: India to crank up military diplomacy by posting more officers abroad

NEW DELHI: India is expanding its military presence around the globe. No, it's not covertly establishing military bases or outposts overseas. Instead, New Delhi is slowly but steadily cranking up the number of its defence attaches or advisors (DAs) deployed abroad as part of its larger military diplomacy strategy.

The endeavour is to post more DAs in Indian missions in hitherto-neglected but strategically crucial areas like the energy-rich Central Asia and Indian Ocean Region (IOR) as well as strengthen presence in countries like China.

Defence ministry sources say the plan is to gradually create as many as 26 new DA posts over the next few years, even as several new "billets" abroad have already been "filled or approved" over the last several months.

"By combining diplomatic and military tools, DAs can promote India's military and security interests. As our military-to-military engagement with countries around the world expands, it's important to post more uniformed officers with domain knowledge in Indian missions," said a source.

With the world's second-largest standing Army, and a Navy and Air Force in the top five or six, India is also helping friendly countries in "capacity-building" of their armed forces. Much like Bhutan and Botswana, for instance, an Indian Army Training Team will soon also be based in Myanmar, where China has made deep strategic inroads.

India now has 100 DAs posted in different countries, with 67 of them being from the Army. "Four new posts for Army officers have been approved in Nigeria, Norway, Azerbaijan and Papua New Guinea," said the source.

Only the US, the UK and Russia have Indian DAs from all three Services till now. India is also going to post a naval attache (NA) to Beijing, even as it steps up its maritime engagement with countries in the IOR.

India feels that its central location in the IOR, astride major commercial routes and energy lifelines like the Malacca Strait makes it a major stakeholder in the region's security and stability. "With defence minister A K Antony holding India has to be the 'net security provider' in the IOR, NAs have also recently been posted to countries like the Maldives and Myanmar," said the source.

Similarly, with DAs already present in Kazakhstan and Tajikistan, India is also focussing on other Central Asian countries like Turmenistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. "The Persian Gulf is another area where the military cooperation is going up," he said.

"A DA can provide a fillip to the overall strategic relations with a country by being the main interface with the host country's military authorities. Apart from assisting the mission in security and protocol tasks, he also keeps an eye of the military technology available," he added.

[vasu raya]

For archival purposes,

We need this technology be it Modi's rally or the Coast Guard linked up through the Naval sat

New Japanese security camera scans 36 million faces per second

Where before authorities would have spent hours trawling through CCTV footage, an individual can now be found in the blink of an eye.

For large audience meetings, we may need databases storing the pictures of all people of the nation (South Asia?) and more on servers in a mobile truck in the field. The suspect list update feed keeps coming in from 'MHA' in real time as well as new photo additions, any matches with people from the event will let the cops know. The identification requests would be phenomenal in these cases and data networks cannot cope with them needing mobile data centers, like on tractor trailers? as seen with the Agni series

For small groups of people to be identified they could send them to remote servers over 3G connections such as Police stations

With DRDO gaining on SoC, it should be able to create a 'google glass' equivalent useful to all the field personnel, or is it part of F-INSAS already?

[abhishek_sharma]

Stuxnet's Secret Twin: The real program to sabotage Iran's nuclear facilities was far more sophisticated than anyone realized.

[Austin]

CIA hid more than it revealed on 26/11: RAW

The sleuths in the Research & Analysis Wing (RAW) have been startled by the claims made in a recently launched book that 26 intelligence inputs were forwarded by the American CIA to the Indian agencies prior to the 26/11 Mumbai attacks.

Officials privy to the files at RAW’s Pakistan Operations Desk confirmed that only two intercepts, on September 18 and September 24, 2008, were forwarded by the CIA desk in Islamabad to the RAW headquarters here.

“The two inputs had indeed warned of a possible terror strike on Mumbai through sea routes but the claims about 26 intelligence warnings seem to be highly exaggerated.

The fact is, the CIA hid more than it had actually revealed to Indian agencies about a terrorist plot in Pakistan,” officials told Express.

On November 19, 2008 RAW operatives in Mumbai had intercepted suspicious communication which suggested a possible assault on the maximum city, that was relayed to the agency’s Pakistan Desk. The input was forwarded to the then National Security Adviser, M K Narayanan and other security agencies including the Director General of Coast Guard.

“A total of three inputs including one input generated by the RAW was received before the attack. There were some other inputs generated by IB which was shared with police and subsequently the security apparatus at two hotels were strengthened,” they said.

A source said that after the 26/11 attack,the CIA was caught on the wrong-foot for aiding its freelancer David Coleman Headley. Despite having information on Headley’s links with the Lashkar-e-Taiba, the American authorities chose to ignore his activities which eventually led to the Mumbai attacks, that killed 164 and left over 300 injured.

“After the attack, the CIA and American authorities went into damage control mode and distanced themselves from Headley. But they had also pressured the Indian government not to pursue Headley’s extradition as he would have revealed what the CIA was trying to hide from the Indian agencies,” he said.

A leaked secret cable from the US embassy here had revealed the American agencies’ fear about Headley. The US Ambassador Timothy Roemer, during his discussion on the Indo-US civilian nuclear agreement on December 16, had raised the issue of Headley’s extradition with Narayanan and sought India’s commitment that it will not seek Headley’s extradition.

Narayanan replied that it was “difficult not to be seen making the effort,” but that the government was not seeking extradition “at this time.”

The NSA added that the Indian government would be ‘in the hot seat’ if it were seen as pre-emptively relinquishing extradition,” a US secret cable revealed.

Former additional secretary of RAW Jayadev Ranade said the initial tip-off definitely came from the CIA, but there was no continuous flow of intelligence.

“Our own specific input was more real that a dhow was coming but the Coast Guard didn’t act. In fact, the CIA had more information on terrorist activities in Pakistan which they shared only a few days after the attack. Even Headley’s interrogation was limited,” he said.

[Nikhil T]

Tunnel near Easter Command HQ creates a scare

KOLKATA: The chance discovery of a tunnel below Red Road, bang in front of the main entrance to Eastern Command Headquarters at Fort William, has rattled Kolkata Police, with security agencies not ruling out the possibility of a terror plot or a recce.

Not only had the fortnight-long digging of the tunnel gone undetected in this high security zone, the thought of terrorists packing it with explosives and turning it into a devastating landmine during the Republic Day parade — or just any other day during routine VVIP movement — sent security agencies into tizzy. Police commissioner Surajit Kar Purkayastha and special commissioner Somen Mitra inspected the site.

One of the diggers, 22-year-old Md Sahil, has been arrested and five others detained for questioning. Officers from Military Intelligence, Intelligence Bureau, Kolkata Police and other agencies are interrogating them.

The tunnel, 11.5 feet long and 4.5 feet wide, starts under a thicket just behind the Red Road railings. Kolkata Police is responsible for the security of the area but the tunnel was discovered only because Sahil, a suspected drug-addict, ratted on his accomplices, say sources. Around 9pm on Thursday, Sahil turned up at the police kiosk near Rani Rashmoni Avenue crossing, pointed towards Red Road and jabbered that some addicts are busy hiding stolen items there. A patrol went to check and was stunned to see the tunnel. It's about 20 feet from the SERLY Sports Association tent and close to the point on Red Road where Park Street-bound vehicles take a left. By the time the police team reported back, Sahil had slipped away.

"There were five persons inside the tunnel at that time. Some stolen cables and steel plates were found. The Army was informed. It seems Sahil was part of the gang but fell out with them over sharing of the spoils. On Friday morning, he returned to the tunnel but Military Intelligence officers were waiting for him. They handed him over to us," a Maidan police officer said.

Records show that BSNL employees were the last to work in the area, laying out underground cables. It is possible that they didn't cover up a ditch and the gang extended it into a tunnel, say police. Officers of Special Task Force and IB have inspected the area. "All angles are being probed. We are trying to ascertain if others were involved," Purakayastha said. No terror angle has been found yet, and experts from several agencies are interrogating the accused to get a clearer picture, said joint commissioner (HQ) Rajeev Mishra.

Defence CPRO group captain T K Singha said: "Our security is in place and we are not unduly bothered by this."

[RoyG]

The same tactics are being used by islamic terror groups operating in Syria.