Spy Versus Spy ; Eight Years After the Kargil War, India's Key Technical Intelligence Agency Is Still Grounded Due to a Bitter Turf War with Raw
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Summary
On May 17, 1999, when the first Gulfstream jets of the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) flew over the 150-km swathe in the Kargil sector, their cameras picked up shockingly candid images of the Pakistani intrusion--mule trains, machine gun nests, gun emplacements, helicopters sitting on helipads--all this 10 km inside the Indian territory. It was a colossal intelligence failure that an operation on such a massive scale by Pakistan had reached this stage without anyone in India being aware of it. The reason: India's multiple agencies with technical snooping capabilities reported to different heads. There were 45 different intelligence inputs but no single agency to piece them together.
Hence, in October 2004, the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) approved a detailed note which would result in the biggest intelligence shake-up since 1968 when RAW was formed. It approved the setting up of a National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO), a super-technical spy organisation modelled on the US National Security Agency (NSA), which would be the repository of the nation's technical intelligence (TECHINT) assets--spy satellites, UAVs and spy planes. The new agency would prevent the recurrence of a Kargil- type fiasco.See the full content of this document
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Spy Versus Spy ; Eight Years After the Kargil War, India's Key Technical Intelligence Agency Is Still Grounded Due to a Bitter Turf War with Raw
Nearly three years later, it wouldn't be wrong to call it the Notional Technical Research Organisation. Key cabinet approvals from the note have not been implemented because of a bitter turf war with the well-established RAW, particularly its airborne and technical division--the Aviation Research Centre (ARC). The only significant assets it has are spy satellite...
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