ICT can curtail terrorism

These organizations intend to destabilize the political establishment as well as the economic stability of a developing country such as India.

Terrorism is no more a regional issue but has now emerged as an international menace and countries are getting their acts together to curtail the activities of terrorist organizations.

In India, terrorism as a major phenomenon has its strong roots in the Khalistan movement in Punjab, allegedly instilled by vested interests of the ISI of Pakistan in the early 1980s.

With the movement being thwarted by then Congress-led Government under late Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi, the focus of these terrorists shifted the conflict over regard to Jammu and Kashmir.

The State since then, has seen many terrorist organizations such as the Lashkar-e-Toiba and Harkat-ul-Mujahideen.

If that’s the story of terrorism in the north of India, the eastern part soon was also inflicted by the menace with several groups such as the NSCN (Isaac-Muviah) demanding a separate country out of Nagaland, ULFA activities in the states of Assam and Meghalaya has only made India more vulnerable.

The Maoist insurgency in the region has only added fuel to the fire with the spread of Naxalism in almost all States.

With the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, in Sriperumbudur in early 1990 by Sri Lanka-based LTTE made the world sit-up and notice how terrorism has spread across the country. The situation only worsened in the country after the Mumbai serial blasts following the demolition of Babri Masjid at Ayodhya in 1992.

However, that was only an instance in the international arena; with India’s cry against terrorism falling on deaf-ears till the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Centre in America.

Terrorism and terrorist organizations started to spread like the cancerous tissue in the world from then on, the reasons for their attacks are still unclear, though religion are said to be the cause followed by political autonomy, depending on the geographical presence of these organizations.

Many laws have been enacted to curb terrorism, such as the National Security Act (NSA), Terrorist Activities and Detention Act (TADA), and the unpopular Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA).

However, the government has not effectively utilized Information and Communication Technology (ICT) as such to handle terrorism as such. The terrorists are said to be much more tech-savvy in using mobile-triggered explosives or in the case of using the Internet and instant messengers to keep their network intact. Even threats to nations are nowadays transmitted via the web to catch the global attention, be it through email or by video.

Talking to CyberMedia News, Tarvinder Singh, head of marketing and product management (networks and enterprise) at Motorola India detailed how the company’s Wi4 technology using a combination of indoor, mesh, fixed and WiMax on IP access could help in virtual monitoring of a city as a preventive measure.

“We have a solution under the brand name MotoWi4, which is a comprehensive portfolio of wireless broadband solutions and services that deliver an extended coverage. The solution offers greater range and bandwidth than Wi-Fi, and is standards-based interoperable cost effective solutions in licensed bands. It comes with a self-install, self-healing indoor CPE,” he said.

“During a terrorist activity, the solution can be accessed even through a mobile handset for multicasting video of the incident to the backend, where the supervisors can monitor instantaneously. In non-crisis situations, the same technology can be doubled up for video surveillance of a city apart from offering low-cost connectivity for the masses for finding nearest healthcare assistance, hotel reservations, parking space reservations, mobile VoIP and video traffic updates,” Singh informed.

He said that the MotoWi4 technology has been implemented at the Virginia Port Authority for enhancing the security monitoring across three ports covering 15-mile area, which was a possible target for terrorists after the 9/11 attacks six years back.

“The Motorola solution was to integrate Canopy System with 91 State-of-the-Art Cameras, Servers and Software which together provide intelligent monitoring that can detect unauthorized objects, land and water intrusions and suspicious movements. The results were excellent, as it was installed in less than 100-days at a significant cost savings. Now the system is accessible from all the three Port Security Offices and can also be accessed directly by Law Enforcement & Emergency Response Centers in Virginia,” Singh added.

Another telecom equipment leader, Ericsson has a security and safety products portfolio to support operations for governments, safety organizations and organizations responsible for critical infrastructure.

The solutions offered by Ericsson under its National Security and Public Safety main mission is to keep society safe and minimize emergencies with consequences that turn into a crisis or create casualties or damage.

Ericsson provides these technical products for operations and collaboration together with crucial communications as well as services and support for actors in the field. The products are characterized by being suitable for use in everyday operations as well as abnormal situations.

According to highly placed officials, the safety and security products support pro-active surveillance and protection of border area, coast and critical infrastructure as well as event and communications security.

The main functions of these products include advanced communications, alarm and alert handling, data management, and resource management apart from information sharing. The functions are crucial for decision and collaboration support. Products for emergency response and public safety actors, such as police, fire, ambulance, depend on reliable communications as well as these main functions.

One major product in terms of managing the crisis during terrorist attacks is the HSPA technology, which Ericsson offers only to government agencies.

“The technology-in-a-box system can be operated in any terrain and instantaneously accesses the available over-the-air frequency. In case of an incident, it enables messages to be sent through SMS and emails to people within the vicinity of the terrorist activity. In this case, many lives could be saved immediately and gives the advantage for the government forces to control the chaos which usually occurs,” highly-placed officials at Ericsson said.

According to Bharat Karnad, defence analyst at Centre for Policy Research, the ICT usage in counter-terrorism activities is not as advanced in the Indian context.

“Though the army is equipped, the paramilitary is not as up-to-date. Logically, we are a bit behind times and there is a problem when it comes to using ICT to contain Naxalism or the North-east militancy,” he said.

“We are not a totalitarian country like China, which can blank-out usage of instant messengers by a section of people. There are limits for democratic country such as India, and for the government that is a problem. Technologically, India is not cutting-edge as one would wish, and we are unable to deal with the terrorism,” he said.

“The Indian military has not arrived at anti-dote options availed as far as technology. However, it is time we did that and adopted ICT for counter-terrorism measures,” Challaney added.

Experts in the ICT industry opine that technologies do exist for pre-emptive intelligence for curbing such activities, so as they for crisis-management measures also.

However, the question remains whether the Indian government is willing to take a commitment, in the absence of one in the past, which had led to the death of innocent people. It is now imperative for the government to take those baby-steps and a conviction to embrace ICT for the well-being of the society.

“Moreover, if money is a matter of concern then the government can also look into a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) model, where the implementing technology partner will be able to take back their return-on-investment during non-critical times and lend the same technology and infrastructure during times of crisis.

For this, there needs to be an end-to-end view and not a fragmented view on using technology from the government’s side,” an industry expert added.