It has been a double whammy. As the nation is reeling under the effects of COVID-19 pandemic, India has to fight another menace: locust invasion. Massive swarms of desert locusts have devoured crops across seven states of western and central India including Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Haryana, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Punjab. The locust population might grow 400 times larger by end June 2020 and spread to new areas without action. It would be disrupting food supply, ...Read more >

The most significant event was the introduction of the information (IT) Act as early as 2000 and the promulgation of the National Cyber Security Policy by the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology in 2013.The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) was established in 2004 and continues to act. ...Read more >

The Trump Administration released the ‘National Cyber Strategy’ on 20 September 2018. Around the same time, the ‘Defense Department Cyber Strategy 2018’ was also published. In the United States (U.S.), every government after taking over, announces some important policies and or strategy documents. The present administration has already released the ‘National Security Strategy’, the ‘National Defense Strategy’ and the ‘Nuclear Posture Review’. The National Cyber Strategy ...Read more >

The exponential growth and rapid adoption of information and communication technologies (ICT) with its associated economics and social opportunities have benefitted billions of people around the world. The Internet has become the backbone of modern businesses, critical services and infrastructure, social networks and the global economy ...Read more >

Immediately after the first gulf war in the early 1990’s the theories of Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) and Information Warfare were being studied all over the world as a new kind of warfare. During that time, a course on Information Warfare was conducted at the National Defense University of USA. The course participants were from senior officers of the armed forces, representatives of Department of Defence and Department of State and policy makers from the government. Rand ...Read more >

Considered to be the most serious kinetic attack on oil facilities in the Gulf since the first Gulf War of 1991, on September 14, 2019 the oil facilities in Saudi Arabia was attacked. The attack struck Abqaiq’s large Aramco oil processing facility considered the largest of its kind in the world run by the Saudi state oil company Aramco and another site at the Khurais oil field. With remarkable precision, the aerial strikes hit more than a dozen oil installations in Khurais and ...Read more >

The media is agog with the report of a cyber attack in India’s largest civil nuclear facility - the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant (KNPP) in Tamil Nadu. Cyberspace provides a new opportunity for determined adversaries to wreak havoc at nuclear facilities possibly without ever setting foot inside the nuclear plant. If the network that runs the machines and software controlling the nuclear reactor are compromised, cyber attacks on nuclear power plants could have physical effects. This can ...Read more >

The study of devices that perceive their environment and define a course of action that will maximize its chance of achieving a given goal. A subset of artificial intelligence, in which machines learn how to complete a certain task without being explicitly programmed to do ...Read more >

In 2004 I went to deliver a talk and chair a session on Cyber War at College of Defence Management, Secunderabad. After the session one of the participant officers of Higher Defence Management Course who was doing his dissertation on a relevant topic engaged me in a discussion that North Korea has no internet connection and how do they do business. My answer that in today’s world no country can afford to have complete disconnect seemed not to satisfy him. Of course Sony happened ...Read more >

China was the world’s largest economy in 1820, accounting for an estimated 32.9 percent of global gross domestic product (GDP). But foreign and civil wars, internal strife, weak and ineffective governments, natural and manmade disasters, and distortive economic policies caused China to fall behind. China’s policies kept the economy poor, stagnant, centrally controlled, vastly inefficient and relatively isolated from the global economy. By 1952, China’s share of global GDP had ...Read more >

With the convergence of computer and communications technology a vast, interdependent physical and electronic network has emerged which connected government, commercial, scientific and educational infrastructures including critical infrastructures. This rapid increases in interconnectivity have facilitated enhanced communications, economic growth and the delivery of services critical to the public welfare. ...Read more >

China published a white paper on July 24 this year Titled ‘China’s National Defence in the New Era’. It aims to help the international community understand China’s national defence strategies under President Xi Jinping. This explains the practice, purposes and importance of China’s attempts to build a fortified national defense and a strong military. Some nation states publish their National Security Strategy and National Defence Strategy from time to time generally coinciding ...Read more >

“Warfare which involves the integrated application of all national capabilities, with technology playing a major role to degrade, disrupt or destroy systems/ targets, while ensuring minimum physical contact of own ...Read more >

Every few years the U.S. defense community latches on to a new term that influences the efforts of the armed services, the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Staff, and the various agencies, labs, think tanks and others responsible for building and maintaining the U.S. military enterprise. Words move money. Every few years, often at the beginning of an administration, a new buzzword emerges: “revolution in military affairs,” “transformation,” “third offset,” or even ...Read more >

The ability to create and use new technologies is the source of economic strength and military security. Technology and the capacity to create new technologies are the basis of information age power. 5G as the cornerstone of a new digital environment is the focal point for the new competition. China’s success in creating globally competitive tele-communications firms has led the Chinese government’s desire to seize leadership in next generation Information Technology (IT). China is ...Read more >