100-day plan to take on terror

It is interesting that just days before the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai, the PM called for a 100-day plan under a high-level central task force to develop an integrated mechanism to fight terrorism and naxalism on the lines of the Department of Homeland Security in the US. He was at that time addressing the 2-day annual conference of Police Chiefs organized by the Intelligence Bureau (IB). The main emphasis of the conference would be on sensitising different states on terrorism related aspects, challenges posed by cyber crimes and the need to have adequate security to ensure national security. The PM had explained the impact of globalization, not just on the financial system, but also on its influence in the realm of security in India. This alludes to the centralized institutional mechanism for coordination among different agencies and state police. With the country having experienced 64 terror attacks - Delhi, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Surat, Jaipur and Guwahati among others - in the past six months, the PM stated that "time is not on our side". There appeared to be some appreciation that the US model was not replicable in India except in concept and in specific areas such as an integrated system for information collection, analysis and dissemination. Not surprisingly, he also suggested that it was time to induct some executive level police personnel into the home ministry and induce a degree of field experience into police matters and policy formulation. A welcome change indeed!

Though that still leaves the question open, of when the bureaucrats running the Defence Ministry will feel the need to induct senior executives from the military for strategy and policy formulation on defence matters. After that we still have the question of when - with the merging external and internal threat domains - a greater level of integration of agencies - with their divergent strategies, disparate structures, inimical cultures, outdated processes and arcane systems - would result.