Tech edge for intelligence

Home Minister P Chidambaram’s successful visit to the United States has not only raised the pressure on Pakistan to act but will also create the ground for a new wave of modernisation of the policing and intelligence apparatus to prevent 26/11-type attacks, reports Aloke Tikku.

Home Minister P Chidambaram’s successful visit to the United States has not only raised the pressure on Pakistan to act but will also create the ground for a new wave of modernisation of the policing and intelligence apparatus to prevent 26/11-type attacks.

HT Image

Inspired by the US model, India will soon have a National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC) and a high-tech control room that will have a three-dimensional map of the entire country, down to the last house in your neighbourhood.

“If there is an terrorist incident in any part of the country, say in Mumbai, it would ensure that we are not struggling to figure out the location, the neighbourhood,” a senior government official told HT on condition of anonymity.

The satellite imagery-based map would enable the security establishment in Delhi to understand the situation at hand, rather than having to wait for briefings about the location and the concomitant constraints that follow.

Accompanied by a team of officials, Chidambaram had spent over two hours touring the US’s counter-terrorism centre. He held meetings with leaders of the US intelligence community, including the director of the National Intelligence and secretary in the department of Homeland Security.

“Ideally, I would like to have an NCTC kind of operation which is technology driven,” an impressed Chidambaram told reporters in Washington.

The home minister, who returned to Delhi on Saturday evening, had placed the NCTC high on the priority list of his ministry when he was appointed home minister.