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Subject: Internal Security

  • [op-ed of the day] The age of ubiquitous drones and the challenges overhead

    Context

    Increasing the use of drones in warfare and other areas has brought into focus the potential the use of drones hold and the other issues related to its misuse.

    Recent events featuring drones

    • A drone was used by the U.S. to fire the missile at Qassem Soleimani to assassinate him.
    • A few days before that, less-lethal drones monitored crowds of student protesters rocking India.

    A potential area of use of drones

    • Military and Policing: Drones are largely used for military or policing purposes, but they also have other uses.
    • Recreation and Sports: They are used for recreation and sports. The Chinese company DJI dominates this space.
    • Logistics: Logistics is another use, with Amazon developing last-mile drone delivery.
    • At scale, this delivery model can save money, energy and time.
    • Domino’s extended this logic to deliver its first pizza by drone in New Zealand and is experimenting with scaling this model up in many markets.
    • Botswana has had some successful trials where drones have delivered blood and life-saving drugs to villages out in the wilderness.
    • Agriculture: A startup called Terraview uses drones with advanced image processing, machine learning, artificial intelligence, and augmented reality to increase the productivity of vineyards.
    • A drone can be used to measure the amount of grain that’s piled up after harvest.
    • Mining Output: Tata Steel has used drones quite effectively to measure mining output.
    • Access the inaccessible places: Drones can go where people cannot.
    • So, inspection and repair at remote wind farms on an island, or pipelines in the remote tundra, or equipment in a rainforest can be done more cheaply and precisely.
    • Drone surveillance is now widely used by the insurance industry in the aftermath of floods or pest inspections.
    • They can provide organizations a 360-degree view of the status of any construction project and its assets.
    • Explosive detection and defusing: In many places, it is just safer to send a drone, such as while using explosives in deep mines or defusing suspected bombs.
    • Wildlife protection and survey: drones are used to survey wildlife and detect poaching in the jungles of Africa.

    Drones as commodity

    • Drones will soon become a hardware commodity, much like personal computers.
    • It will be the software loaded on it that will be the real force-multiplier.
    • Industry 4.0 revolution: Business like “drones-as-a-service” will emerge, dramatically reducing the time taken for tasks and serving as a vital tool in the Industry 4.0 revolution.

    A potent tool for Swarm-attack by military

    • Perhaps the most fascinating developments will occur where drones originated, in
    • Drones will mutate into swarms, where multiple, intelligent, small drones act as one vast network, much like a swarm of birds or locusts.
    • Advanced militaries have drone swarms under trial that could revolutionize future conflicts.
    • These swarms could overwhelm enemy sensors with sheer numbers and precisely target enemy soldiers and assets using data fed into them.
    • They will be difficult to shoot down as there will be hundreds of small flying objects rather than one big ballistic missile.
    • The swarm will use real-time ground data to organize itself and operate in concert to achieve its goal.

    Issues with drones

    • It will be us humans who will decide whether we use drones for beneficial or malevolent ends.
    • National Security Issues: Drones have demonstrated the potentials for their threat to the security of a country. Drones are operated remotely and can strike where it want it to strike. Raising serious security issues.
    • Terrorism: Drones have been used by various terrorist organisations like ISIS in Syria and Iraq to hit their targets.
    • Aviation safety: Drones flying too close to commercial aircraft has called for regulations.
    • Privacy: Drones have been used by the paparazzi to take the images of individuals breaching their privacy.

    Conclusion

    Drones can indeed be a fantastic tool for good projects, from helping save the planet to identifying and nabbing criminals, and preventing the loss of human life. However, for that, we will have to change the DNA that they were born with, as lethal weapons of war. Otherwise, they will remain anonymous killers, wreaking death and destruction as they hover innocuously above.

     

  • [pib] Exercise MILAN 2020

    Visakhapatnam is set to host an International Naval event ‘MILAN’ in March 2020.

    MILAN 2020

    • It is a multilateral naval exercise aimed to enhance professional interaction between friendly foreign navies and learn from each other’s strengths and best practices in the maritime domain.
    • The Exercise with the theme ‘Synergy Across the Seas’ would provide an excellent opportunity for Operational Commanders of friendly foreign navies to interact with each other in areas of mutual interest.
    • Of the 41 navies invited, confirmations from over 30 navies have been received towards their participation in MILAN 2020.

    In continuity with:

    https://www.civilsdaily.com/news/pib-exercise-milan-2020/

  • [pib] Operation Sankalp

    Indian Navy has commenced Maritime Security Operations, code named Op SANKALP, in the Gulf region to ensure safe passage of Indian Flag Vessels transiting through the Strait of Hormuz.

    Op Sankalp

    • Indian Navy warships and aircraft were deployed to establish presence, provide a sense of reassurance to the Indian merchantmen, monitor the ongoing situation and respond to any emergent crises.
    • The operation is being progressed in close coordination with all stakeholders including Ministry of Defence, Ministry of External Affairs, Ministry of Shipping, Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas and DG, Shipping.
    • The Navy continues to monitor the situation in the Gulf region and is maintaining presence in the region to ensure security of our sea borne trade and the safety of Indian Flag Merchant Vessels transiting through the region.

  • [op-ed of the day] There is a design flaw with this military post

    Context

    Recently Chief of Defence Staff post was created by the Government. The utility of this post and the problem it could create are debated.

    History leading to the post

    • First World War brought to the fore the command and control dilemmas of concurrent conflicts.
    • During the colonial years of Great Britain, an issue that received consideration was the British higher command and control structures.
    • With the declaration of the Second World War, the responsibility of higher command fell on War Cabinet serviced by the Chiefs of Staff Committee.
    • Winston Churchill as prime minister given the supreme power but remained responsible to the parliament.
    • After the U.S. entered the war, a unified command required a single commander.
    • After the war ended and the Cold War started, Eisenhower became the supreme commander of NATO.
    • While political powers were vested in the NATO council.
    • Despite the experience of the World Wars the U.S. has not created CDS.
    • In the U.S., the military chain of command runs directly from theatre commanders to civilian secretaries to the President.
    • Britain, however, created the post of the Chief of Defence Staff.

    The outline for India

    • The three-tier defense management structure was adopted by Jawaharlal Nehru.
    • Cabinet Committee on security has served India for well over the years.

    Role of CDS

    • Department of Military Affairs, headed by CDS will deal with the Army, Navy and Air force and The Territorial Army.
    • Works related to procurement related exclusively to the services except for capital acquisition.
    • He will also act as a Principal Military Advisor to the Defence Minister.
    • CDS will not exercise any military command, including the three Service Chiefs, so as to be able to provide impartial advice to the political leadership.

    A subordination

    • There would be an implied subordination of the three service chiefs to the CDS notwithstanding any declaration to the contrary.
    • CDS is tasked with facilitating the restructuring of military commands.
    • Bringing about jointness in operations including through the establishment of joint/ theatre command.
    • This could encroach upon the domain of the service chiefs.
    • The CDS would outrank the three service chiefs even though all are four-star.
    • CDS could override the Service Chiefs on critical tactical and perhaps even strategic issues.

    Conclusion

    • The Department of Military Affairs would exercise control over the three services and also most problematic is the erosion of the civilian supremacy which could result with the creation of the post.

  • Police Reforms – SC directives, NPC, other committees reports

  • Internal Security Trends and Incidents

  • Internal Security Architecture Shortcomings – Key Forces, NIA, IB, CCTNS, etc.

  • Cyber Security – CERTs, Policy, etc

  • Defence Sector – DPP, Missions, Schemes, Security Forces, etc.

  • Internal Security| National Intelligence Grid (NATGRID)

    It’s time to learn some basics from GS-IV paper as its Internal security part is significant to score. We will cover series of articles on Internal security with some contemporary topics.

    What’s the NATGRID?

    The National Intelligence Grid or NATGRID is the integrated intelligence grid connecting databases of core security agencies of the Government of India to collect comprehensive patterns of intelligence that can be readily accessed by intelligence agencies.

    Why do we need NATGRID ?

    • 26/11 attacks on Mumbai led to the exposure of several weaknesses in India’s intelligence gathering and action networks.
    • “NATGRID” data transfer system unveiled by Home Minister P. Chidambaram in December 2009 and operational now.

    How does it work?

    NATGRID will integrate 21 categories of data from agencies like

    • Banks,
    • Railways and airlines,
    • Income tax department,
    • Credit card companies etc.
    • Visa and immigration
    • This combined data will be made available to 11 central agencies including the R&AW, the National Investigation Agency(NIA), the CBI, the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence, the Intelligence Bureau(IB), the Narcotics Control Bureau(NCB) and the Enforcement Directorate(ED) to help them prevent terrorist attacks and criminal activities.

    Is there any Privacy and misuse issue?

    • Some people are concerned about the protection of individual privacy and misuse of information by law enforcement agencies.
    • NATGRID is only the technical interface for intelligence agencies and not an organization in itself. If the agency initiating the inquiry is not authorized to get that information, it cannot get it.
    • It has strong information protection technology and external audits Security and intelligence agencies will not be able to use the
    • NATGRID system to access information for any purpose other than that of countering terror.
    • It will not “store” any personal data, but only facilitate transfer.

    Will it be a concerning thing as Wikileaks does?

    • SIPRNET is a computer network connecting US Defense and State Departments (similar to our NATGRID).
    • One Soldier Bradly Mannins, accessed the SIPRNET, copied all the US diplomatic documents and sent them to Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.
    • Similar fiasco could happen with India’s NATGRID.
    Published with inputs from Arun