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This was disclosed recently by India’s top defence scientist Dr Avinash Chander while addressing the intelligence
community at the 27th Intelligence Bureau Centenary Endowment Lecture. Pointing out that connectivity played a key role
in the security of the country, he observed that modern technology had also become a “critical enabler in every phase of
the intelligence cycle.”
He emphasised the importance of connectivity for both the economy and security of the country.
From information gathering to information analysis and information dissemination, the impact of technology has not only revolutionised
the traditional means of intelligence such as the Human Intelligence (HUMINT), but has also opened new disciplines such as Signals Intelligence
(SIGINT), Geospatial Intelligence (GEOINT),
Imagery Intelligence (IMINT), Cyber Intelligence (CYINT) and Measurement and Signature Intelligence (MASINT).
Space assets like satellites facilitated communications, navigation, mass media and also “our ability to predict cyclones, weather and
crops, all are dependent on space.” But all these technologies, “though offering benefits, are not spared from adversary threats.”
Dr Chander, who is Secretary, Defence Research & Development (DRD) in the Ministry of Defence and Director General of
Defence Research & Development Organisation (DRDO) as well
as Scientific Adviser to the Defence Minister, laid great emphasis on the importance of intelligence agencies.
The title of his lecture, delivered December 23, was Emerging Technological Challenges in National Security.
“The strength of any nation depends primarily on in its intelligence agencies. The intelligence agencies assess
potential of the adversaries in terms of their Economic strength, Defence and Industrial infrastructure, Communication
and Transport systems, political leadership, scientific and technical prowess, sociological, cultural and geographical
factors and so on. Thus, the mission of our intelligence agencies is to support defence planning and operations and
contribute to national security through a coordinated effort by the entire intelligence community.”
Pointing out that the strength of a country depended a lot on its intelligence apparatus, Dr Chander observed
that Indian agencies like Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), Intelligence Bureau (IB), Joint Cipher Bureau (JCB),
Aviation Research Centre (ARC) and National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO) are “playing an important role
in defining the needs and driving the technologies.” They enable the military
with possible threat information and also assist in the management of internal security.
Overall, “our intelligence agencies support defence planning and operations and
contribute to national security through a coordinated effort by the entire intelligence community.”
Elaborating the importance of space assets, Dr Chander said that while technology helped in precise
location of a transmitter, fingerprinting the system enabled detection of individual transmitters.
“Precise measurements from space in hyper-spectral domain are processed to differentiate between decoys and
the real targets. It is also possible to detect missile launches and the nuclear radiations
based on space based sensors, integrated with information from ground radars and networked sensors.”
Dr Chander said that it was necessary to protect the country’s critical
cyber infrastructure. With the expansion of cyber domain, both the advantages and challenges will grow.
“The (coming) 5G systems will allow massive data transfers upto1Gb/sec. And the data flow and volumes will
enhance multi-fold. By 2020 we are expecting to have 50billion systems connected to the network. Old net structures
are giving way to dense cloud structures. Speed of information processing doubles every 12-18 months,
parallel processing with optical interconnects on a single chip are enhancing the computation capability.
“A single breakthrough capability like quantum computation can change the entire scenario.”
DRDO, he said, had made indigenous efforts for threat identification, risk assessment, trustworthy development,
indigenously architectured high assurance platforms and high assurance systems evaluation.
Dr Chander had told India
Strategic recently that critical software for several
defence systems, imported by the Indian armed forces, is developed and provided by DRDO.
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