#SecurityScan 20: Drone sightings along LoC, Cyber attack on AIIMS and more
A massive anti-Naxal search operation led by security forces, including local police is underway in Maosit-affected areas in Jharkhand.
NewsBharati 03-Dec-2022 17:48:43 PM
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This article is a summary of important events that have taken place in last one week affecting, India's national security.
News in brief
Agniveers: Defence ministry organises session with defence industry representatives
India-Malaysia joint military exercise 'Harimau Shakti-2022' begins in Kluang-
Combat-experienced troops of the Garhwal Rifles Regiment of the Indian Army and the Royal Malay Regiment of the Malaysian Army are participating in the exercise this year to share experiences gained during operations in order to enhance inter-operability in planning and execution of various operations in jungle terrain.
India, France hold defence dialogue; discuss ways to bolster cooperation-
The two sides also agreed to increase the scope and complexity of bilateral military exercises, noting convergences on several strategic issues, including shared concerns for the Indo-Pacific region. "A wide range of bilateral, regional, defence and defence industrial cooperation issues were discussed in the dialogue.
Ulema have a key role to play in fighting extremism, says NSA Doval-
On Tuesday, Ulemas from Indonesia interacted with their Indian counterparts on variety of themes encompassing relogio-cultural issues. Discussion on were held on the role of Ulema in fostering a culture of interfaith peace and social harmony in India and Indonesia.
Integration of aircraft with INS Vikrant likely by May-June next year: Navy chief R Hari Kumar-
The sea-going trials are already over after which the carrier was commissioned. Now, the aircraft integration trials have been started, he told reporters after reviewing the Passing Out Parade of the 143rd course of the National Defence Academy (NDA) at Khadakwasla.
Indian Coast Guard Advanced Light Helicopter Mk-III squadron commissioned in Chennai-
"In a major boost to further strengthening the Coast Guard Region East, 840 Sqn (CG), an Indian Coast Guard Advanced Light Helicopter (ALH) Mk-III squadron, was commissioned by DG Shri VS Pathania at ICG Air Station, Chennai on November 30, 2022.
5 CoBRA commandos injured in encounter with Maoists in Jharkhand's West Singhbhum-
A massive anti-Naxal search operation led by security forces, including local police is underway in Maosit-affected areas in Jharkhand.
Four dead as hotel siege in Somali capital -
Al-Shabaab, a militant group affiliated to Al-Qaeda that has been trying to overthrow Somalia's central government for 15 years, claimed responsibility for the attack.
Former Pakistan Army chief Javed Bajwa blames politicians for 1971 war debacle-
In one of the several farewells meet ups, he categorically said "1971 was not a military, but a political failure. Our army fought courageously in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh).East Pakistan debacle in 1971 a 'military failure', says Pak Foreign Minister Bilawal.
INTERNAL SECURITY
At 268, drone sightings along border with Pak double in 2022
Asked about the number of illegal immigrants caught since last year, after the BSF was given wider powers to carry out search and seizures in the border states of Punjab, West Bengal and Assam, Singh said, "The border force was granted powers under the Passport Act and Passport (Entry to India) Act. The numbers of those caught infiltrating in these border districts have gone up slightly but not much.
BSF procures 2 SUV-mounted jammers, 100 drones
The BSF has also placed orders for procuring a total of 1,424 hand-held thermal imagers (HHTIs) for its border security units. The gadget is used to detect movement of terrorists along the front during night time and foggy climate. Almost 100 small and big drones have been procured by the force for watching the border areas and "has received a sanction from the Union home ministry for purchase of an equal number of more such drones or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs)".
Drones have to be tackled by using all elements of national power including Army, IAF and the DRDO.
ECONOMIC SECURITY
Reduction in GDP Growth
India continues to be the fastest-growing major economy in the world, its GDP expanding by 6.3% in the July-September quarter, matching exactly the projections made by the Monetary Policy Committee. However, National Statistical Office (NSO) data shows Q2 GDP growth is markedly lower than the figure (8.4%) for the corresponding period last year, and significantly lower than the explosive 13.5% in the first quarter of the current fiscal.
Manufacturing growth has been lagging over the last six years. In fact, the alarming rise in the trade deficit with China — at the end of September, it stood at $76 billion for this year’s first nine months, according to Chinese customs statistics — points to an urgent need to review India’s industrial policy. While calling out China for its half-hearted approach towards ending the border standoff, New Delhi also needs to recalibrate trade ties and reduce dependence on Chinese imports. Despite attempts by government to reduce imports, the greedy traders and corporate world is over dependent on cheap Chinese goods. Time to take strict action against them.
India remittances to hit record $100 billion in 2022; rise by 12 per cent
India will be the first country in the world to receive $100 billion from remittances during 2022, the World Bank has said.Though remittances to the rest of the South Asian countries declined by 10 per cent, they rose by 12 per cent in India’s case.
Remittances worldwide during 2022 are estimated at $794 billion. South Asia receives the most remittances that are estimated at $163 billion in 2022, of which India’s share will be $100 billion.
Remittances to India were enhanced by wage hikes and a strong labour market in the US and other OECD countries. In the Gulf Cooperation Council destination countries, governments ensured low inflation through direct support measures that protected migrants’ ability to remit.
Remittances are a vital source of household income for India as they alleviate poverty, improve nutritional outcomes, and are associated with increased birth weight and higher school enrollment rates for children in disadvantaged households. Studies show that remittances help recipient households to build resilience, for example through financing better housing and to cope with the losses in the aftermath of disasters.
Sensex closed at 62,681.84 points on a record high
Indian equities are an outlier, unaffected by the flow of negative global economic and geopolitical news.
For long, foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) have had an outsized influence on equity indices here. Over the last 20 months, almost $22 billion of FPI investment has flown out of equities. Over the same period, the BSE Sensex has risen 25%. This is perhaps the most important change as domestic inflows into equities have more than offset FPIs.
Households, the main source of savings in India, have driven this change. A part of the surge was directed into shares and also equity-oriented mutual funds, which saw an increase in assets under management by more than 50% to over Rs 15 lakh crore. Other areas where household savings flow such as life insurance funds and even EPFO have also undergone a significant tilt in favour of equities, now invests up to 15% of annual inflows into financial instruments linked to equities.
India’s bank-dominated financial market is in the midst of a transformation. RBI estimates that bank credit accounts for nearly half of the total flow of resources to the commercial sector. Of the remaining flow of resources, as the share of equity grows it simultaneously enhances the availability of riskier forms of investment into the commercial sector. It comes just as automation disrupts traditional economic structures. Indian industry will benefit.
Cyber Security-Cyber Attack on AIIMS
The All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi, has been in the firefighting mode ever since the November 23 cyberattack on some of its servers that compromised sensitive data and e-records of crores of patients. The hospital has shut down its servers, network and computers to sanitise them and update the anti-virus software so as to strengthen cyber security before online work is restored. However, it not yet clear if the lost data — that is crucial for not only ongoing treatments but also for academic research and reference purposes by the doctors and scientists working at the premier institute — can be retrieved.
Meanwhile, the institute is hobbling with contingency plans, including seeking DRDO help and activating the manual mode to offset the suffering and disruption that the malware infection is causing to patients, physicians and paramedical and administration staff as they struggle with appointments and registration, billing and laboratory reports.
Given that tens of lakhs of patients visit AIIMS annually and that the institute was ready to be fully digitised in a few months, a huge and precious cache of stored files has been corrupted. The hacking rightly warrants a multi-agency investigation.
Good Governance-NJAC better than collegium
The return of 20 names proposed by the Supreme Court collegium for judicial appointments – ten of those names were reiterated after being returned earlier – shows GoI has hardened its position in the current standoff.
The collegium is a demonstrably poor system where the individual biases of judges can affect who gets selected or dropped and there’s too much opacity in its ways of functioning. NJAC was an elegant solution, but one which SC feared would give the executive primacy in judicial appointment. Centre must unveil a new NJAC after consultation with political parties and SC, which is acceptable to all sides.
EXTERNAL SECURITY
Pakistan Questions Anti-Terror Pledges by Afghanistan's Taliban
After suicide bomb, Pakistan demands Taliban prevent attacks.
Pakistan Says Taliban Unit Attacking From Afghanistan.
Police said the gunmen rushed into the hotel in Bondhere district at around 8:00 pm (1700 GMT) on Sunday and an operation was under way to "eliminate" them.
Pakistan’s money making Generals in the business of multiplying personal wealth
The acquisition of wealth through allotments of residential plots in plush cantonment townships has been a long-term pastime of of the Pakistan army. Officers are busy making so much money in property deals that defending the country has become a secondary task. Retired Generals live in mansions after retirement. Pakistan perhaps has the only army in the world, where two successive army chiefs, Generals Pervez Musharraf and Ashfaq Kayani, spent several years abroad, living luxuriously, almost immediately after they retired. Musharraf has spent long years after retirement in London and Dubai, while Kayani did likewise in Sydney.
Gen Raheel Sharif, was described as: ‘The army chief who ruled without a coup.’ He has spent a long time in Saudi Arabia, commanding a non-existent, 41-member ‘Islamic military force’.
There is a credible report about the wealth accumulated by Bajwa and his family. ‘The General’s wife Ayesha became a multi-billionaire with large farmhouses in Gulberg Greens, Islamabad and Karachi, multiple residential plots in Lahore, and commercial plots and plazas in DHA schemes. ‘Members of Bajwa’s immediate and extended family started a new international business, shifted capital abroad, and bought foreign properties. In this process, a young woman from Lahore became a billionaire nine days prior to becoming the daughter-in-law of the COAS.’ However, what he has done is no different from his predecessors.
Pakistan is facing increased threats of attacks by Baloch Nationalist Groups and the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, which represents Pashtun nationalist sentiments across Afghanistan’s borders with Pakistan, apart from tensions within Pakistan’s own Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Will the Generals focus on internal security of Pakistan rather than making money?
Pakistan Army rejects claims about Gen Bajwa, family's assets
According to the report published by the Fact Focus website, the alleged tax records of Gen Bajwa's family, the current market value of the known assets and business of the army chief, both within and outside Pakistan, amounted to Rs 12.7 billion. Pakistan Army finally broke its silence on Sunday, days after the Shehbaz Sharif-led government launched a probe and suspended two officers from service for their involvement in leaking the tax records of Gen Bajwa and his family members.
THIS WAS EXPECTED REACTION FROM PAK ARMY.
COUNTERING CHINESE MULTI DOMAIN WAR
China to have 1500 nuclear warheads by 2035: Pentagon report
China is likely to have a stockpile of about 1,500 warheads by 2035, up from the current estimated number of 400, the Pentagon has said. In its annual report to the Congress on China's ambitious military build-up, the Pentagon said Tuesday that over the next decade, Beijing aims to modernise, diversify, and expand its nuclear forces.
China continuing infra work on India border, weighing base in Pak: US
Throughout its standoff with India along the LAC, Chinese sought to downplay the severity of the crisis, emphasising Beijing's intent to preserve border stability and prevent the standoff from harming other areas of its bilateral relationship with India, the Pentagon said in its latest report to Congress on Chinese military buildup .
Noting its close ties to Pakistan, the report said sophisticated weapons are being transferred by China, including armed drones and a deal for supply of new generation submarines to the Pakistani Navy. It also mentions the presence of a PLA Strategic Support Force (SSF) facility in Pakistan. The Pentagon said that it is likely that China is considering overseas bases, including one in Pakistan.
China said it was opposed to the joint Indo-US military exercises being held near the Line of Actual Control (LAC), asserting that it violates the spirit of the two border agreements signed between New Delhi and Beijing.
South Korea scrambles jets after Chinese, Russian warplanes approach
The Chinese H-6 bombers repeatedly entered and exited the Korea Air Defence Identification Zone (KADIZ) near South Korea's southern and northeast coasts early Wednesday, Seoul's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said.
Japan tells China, Russia it has 'severe concerns' over joint air patrols: spokesperson
"We will closely monitor the increasing cooperation between the two countries with a sense of concern," Matsuno, Japan's top government spokesperson, told a regular press conference, adding that Japan would "decisively protect" its territories.
Challenge to Xi Jinping amid protests
Within a month of President Xi Jinping securing an unprecedented third term after seeing off perceived or potential rivals, a challenge to his powers and authority has arisen from the Chinese street. A fire in an apartment block in the Xinjiang capital Urumqi killed 10 people because the fire services could not access the building locked down by local authorities in line with the state’s zero Covid strategy. The awfulness of this incident seems to have touched a raw nerve across the country. People, mainly youngsters, have been stepping out to protest over the last few days against President Xi’s strict anti-Covid policies. The numbers at each protest are unprecedented, organic and innovative.
Since the Tiananmen Square protest was brutally put down in 1989, there has been only one other instance of a large public protest, in 1999 by Falung Gong followers. This time around, zero Covid has strained national patience with its sudden lockdowns making China the only country in the world that is still using this measure to tackle its Covid cases. Travel to and from China has also not normalised yet. The football World Cup in Qatar, with lakhs of people flying in, must have been the last straw for audiences in China.
Xi, who has centralised powers in his hands, now personifies the Chinese state. Therefore it is not surprising that some of the anger is being directed at him openly. The long arm of the Chinese state may yet find a way to nip the protests. The world is watching to see how Xi deals with this new domestic challenge.
U.S. weighs sending 100-mile strike weapon to Ukraine
U.S. and allied military inventories are shrinking, and Ukraine faces an increasing need for more sophisticated weapons as the war drags on. Boeing's proposed system, dubbed Ground-Launched Small Diameter Bomb (GLSDB), is one of about a half-dozen plans for getting new munitions into production for Ukraine and America's Eastern European allies.
NATO foreign ministers meeting in Bucharest are focusing on ramping up military assistance for Ukraine such as air defence systems and ammunition, even as diplomats acknowledge supply and capacity issues, but also discuss non-lethal aid as well. Part of this non-lethal aid - goods such as fuel, medical supplies, winter equipment and drone jammers - has been delivered through a NATO assistance package that allies can contribute to and which Stoltenberg aims to increase.
The Pentagon is considering a Boeing proposal to supply Ukraine with cheap, small precision bombs fitted onto abundantly available rockets, allowing Kyiv to strike far behind Russian lines as the West struggles to meet demand for more arms.
Census 2021: Number of Christians falls in England
Census data shows that just over 46 per cent said they were Christian, down from 59.3 per cent in the last census conducted in 2011.Those identifying as having “no religion” was the second most common response to the census survey, increasing to 37.2 per cent.
‘Muslim’ increased to (3.9 million, 6.5 per cent in 2021, and ‘Hindu’ (1.0 million, 1.7 per cent in 2021. Sikh also registered a increase, up from 0.8 per cent (423,000) in 2011 to 0.9 per cent (524,000) in 2021.
As Europe ages same story is likely to be repeated in rest of Europe.
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BRIG Hemant Mahajan
Passionate writer on National Security related issues, Brig Hemant Mahajan YSM (Retd) is M Sc, M Phil in Defence Studies. He joined IMA Dehradun in July 1973 and passed out as a Commissioned Officer on 15 June 1975. He was commissioned into 7 MARATHA LIGHT INFANTRY. He has served extensively in Counter Insurgency Operations in Insurgency and Terrorist prone areas of Jammu & Kashmir, Punjab and North East and has taken part in all important operations undertaken by the Army since 1975.
Brig Hemant Mahajan served in Jammu & Kashmir, in the deserts of Rajasthan, in Super High Altitude areas of Kargil and Leh, forward areas of Arunachal Pradesh. He was deployed in Punjab in ‘Operation Avert’. He was also involved in maintaining peace post ‘Operation Bluestar’ days in Punjab in the worst affected district of Gurdaspur, Taran Taran and Amritsar.He served in the areas of Darjeeling, Kurseong, Siliguri and Sikkim. He commanded his battalion 7 MARATHA LIGHT INFANTRY in Operation Rakshak in the most difficult areas of Poonch and Rajouri during the times of highest militancy. His unit was responsible for stopping terrorists from Pakistan into Jammu and Kashmir. His unit was awarded Unit Citation, 18 gallantry awards including YSM (gallantry) for the officer.