Powering the Forces

The UPA government deserves praise for its decisive move to build a $2 billion dedicated, highly secure and state-of-the-art optical fiber cable network for the Army, Navy and the Air Force. The exclusive telecommunication network for the armed forces of the country will be the world’s largest, closed user group networks for over a million personnel. The Department of Telecommunication has already been asked to prepare a note for the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs for getting financial approval for this network. The proposed exclusive telecommunication network is in consonance with the need to finetune the country’s defence grid, communication being one of its most important components. It is exclusive and excellent communication networks that define a military power’s ambitions, and India can compete with powerful rivals like China only when its defence architecture is cemented with high technology, including of course classic and foolproof communication facilities. At the same time when we have neighbours like Pakistan whose army’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) is ever engaged in sinister plots against us, it is all the more imperative that our armed forces are powered by an impregnable telecommunication network. THE SENTINEL