Home ministry to form working group on security with FICCI

NEW DELHI - The home ministry will form a working group with an industry lobby to explore how modern technology can be used to fight terrorism and other national security challenges.

This was disclosed at a conference on “Science and Technology for Homeland Security” organised by the Federation of India Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) here Thursday in collaboration with the home ministry.

FICCI Secretary General Amit Mitra suggested the joint working group should create a “working environment” for public-private partnership in developing modern tools to make the homeland security more credible.

“And how to go about the idea is absolutely at your judgment,” Mitra told U.K. Bansal, special secretary, internal security, in the ministry.

Thrilled with the suggestion, Bansal said: “Oh yes. It is a very good idea. If Ficci can provide valuable interface between the industry and the end user (of technology, security forces in this case)… it is a welcome idea. We can work on it and take it forward.”

The two-day seminar on security of infrastructure and territory has been organised in view of terrorism, Maoist violence, extremism, narcotics trafficking, cyber-attacks and other security threats India is facing.

Bansal said the private-public partnership “has to be most active and it should create more levels of security in our country to make our security forces more robust in facing the threats of terrorism, extremism, communal violence”.

The Scientific Advisor to Defence Minister A.K. Antony, V.K. Saraswat, said the shift from conventional wars to non-conventional, low-intensity wars and anti-terrorism operations have “compelled India’s security apparatus to gear itself for a transformational focus.”

“Under these circumstances, the security forces must have adequate capability to fight this emerging security threat. The requirement of being equipped with indigenously developed technology has emerged in a big way,” said Saraswat, who also heads the premier Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO).

He said “terrorists, insurgents and anti-social elements” were using technologies in an innovative way “which always has an element of surprise and high degree of sophistication”.

“To counter such threats, security forces need appropriate, indigenous and user-friendly technologies,” he said.