The Indian government, particularly its military and its intelligence wings, has traditionally taken such threats lightly. This country is generally believed to be an information-technology power; but its state is so lacking in capability that it is, by some accounts, unable to secure even defence research networks against intrusion. True, the National Security Council has been working towards creating some sort of platform for cyber-defence for some time now; in January this year, National Security Advisor Shiv Shankar Menon claimed the final details were being worked out. The problem is, ironically, the lack of skilled manpower. While China has hundreds of thousands of hackers who can be and are probably turned to the use of the state — and even North Korea has about 15,000 — the sad fact is that the Indian state is far less willing to introduce younger, more effective people from outside into its national-security structures than any of its competitors. The University Grants Commission has now, it was reported in this newspaper last week, requested the vice-chancellors of technical universities and institutions to introduce cyber security and information security as subjects, so that a specialised corps of students might eventually be produced.
That is a necessary first step. But it will still be a failure unless the government overcomes its known unwillingness to look outside its doors for human resources. For example, it has been reported that the first co-ordinator of the new national cyber-security platform will be a civil servant who did not inspire much confidence while overseeing and implementing the various attempts the government had undertaken to block websites over the past year. Without accountability and new blood, India will always fall behind in new forms of conflict.