India, Israel to enlarge web of ties, institutionalise cyber security dialogue

India and Israel are all set to institutionalise cyber security cooperation

Updated on: May 21, 2017, 23:49:10 IST

New Delhi, Hindustan Times | By Shishir Gupta

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With national cyber security coordinator in the Prime Minister’s Office Dr Gulshan Rai bound for Tel Aviv this week, India and Israel are all set to institutionalise cyber security cooperation in the run-up to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s maiden visit to Jerusalem in July.

Modi is expected to visit the Middle Eastern country in July during which the two sides are expected to finalise pacts in key sectors. (File Photo)

Israeli and Indian diplomatic sources also confirmed that secretary (Industrial Promotion and Policy) Ramesh Abhishek, along with Invest India team, reached Tel Aviv on Sunday, a day after foreign secretary S Jaishankar left for India after meeting Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu last Friday.

Abhishek will hold talks with his Israeli counterpart to promote investment in India under Modi’s ‘Make in India’ initiative besides the defence sector.

Despite India and Israel being close partners in defence and security for the past two decades, the two countries have still to institutionalise cyber security dialogue.

Israel is a leading global power in offensive and defensive technologies, and is one of the very few countries to have the capability of intercepting Net-based communication platforms.

Given that terror and extremist groups world over communicate through Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP), India looks toward Israeli cooperation in this vital area.

Although it is early days yet, India and Israel would like to exchange notes on protecting national databases from malware and hackers.

The two sides are preparing to set up a dialogue or a joint working group where cyber-experts from both sides could exchange information or technologies for mutual benefit.

Israel is also reaching out to chief ministers of key Indian states like Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Rajasthan and Maharashtra for one-on-one dialogues with agriculture, irrigation, water and sanitation majors over the coming months in order to cooperate on specific state-related problems.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Shishir Gupta
Shishir Gupta is Executive Editor at Hindustan Times and one of India's top journalists covering national security, strategic affairs, foreign policy and geopolitics. Over the past three decades, he has extensively reported on India's military, diplomatic and security landscape, covering every major conflict and national security challenge, from the 1999 Kargil War and the 2020 East Ladakh standoff to Operation Sindoor in 2025. He has also covered major terror attacks, including the IC-814 hijacking, the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and the 2025 Pahalgam terror strike, along with numerous Pakistan-backed terrorist incidents in the Kashmir Valley and across India. He has reported on national and state elections for more than three decades. A recognised authority on strategic affairs, Gupta has covered India's nuclear programme since the Pokhran-II (Shakti series) tests in May 1998 and has written extensively on global nuclear issues, Indian diplomacy and the country's expanding global outreach. He has also reported widely on international conflicts and terrorism, with a special focus on the Indian subcontinent. Gupta has interviewed Prime Minister Narendra Modi more than four times, including Modi's first interview with the print media after becoming Prime Minister in May 2014. His other interviews include three with the Dalai Lama, as well as conversations with Benjamin Netanyahu, Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath, S. Jaishankar, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal. He is the author of Indian Mujahideen: The Enemy Within (Hachette, 2011) and Himalayan Face-off: Chinese Assertion and Indian Riposte (Hachette, 2014). He was awarded the Chevening-Wolfson Joint Scholarship at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, UK, in 1998 and participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) of the US State Department in 2006. He received the Ben Gurion Prize from Israel in 2011 and the K. Subrahmanyam Prize for Strategic Studies in 2015 from the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA). Since 2024, he has hosted Point Blank, Hindustan Times' weekly YouTube show on global geopolitics.Read More

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