Security alert !!

The world has been encountering continual increment in terrorism from past decade but still the counter solution looks far !!

The biggest threat to terrorism is on India, due to the sheer volume of population that can be targeted and the havoc that terrorism can create with such mass scale population. Due to the population density, terrorism can create a bigger disaster in India than any other country.

So, with this scale of terror, what are we doing for it ? Have we prepared the proactive monitoring and reactive defensive measures to counter such attacks ? Obviously there cannot be a direct YES or a NO to these questions. There are certain steps that the nation has taken to arrest such attacks in future but, the question remains; are they good enough ?

I was reading an article the other day that talks about on an average a person goes through 8 cameras in UK while the average in India is not even ONE. This talks about our preparation of proactive measures on terrorism. The govt has constituted a body for building National Intelligence Grid(NATGRID) which will integrate the existing 21 databases with Central and state government agencies and other organisations in the public and private sector such as banks, insurance companies, stock exchanges, airlines, railways, telecom service providers, chemical vendors, etc. Eleven government agencies (including RAW, Intelligence Bureau, Revenue Intelligence, Income Tax, etc.) will be able to access sensitive personal information of any individual — such as bank accounts, insurance policies, property owned or rented, travel, income tax returns, driving records, automobiles owned or leased, credit card transactions, stock market trades, phone calls, emails and SMSes, websites visited, etc.

With the above in question, it poses a big responsibilities on the state to adhere to the privacy laws. while surveillance is at a very advanced levels in western countries, PRIVACY LAWS have been under scanner for quite some time. In India at least, we are at a far off stage where we could even think of violating the privacy laws.

As a society, are we prepared to upgrade ourselves with the innovative technologies to counter terrorism. Does the state help/aid people who would like to volunteer for co-ordinating such information exchange programmes and help build a more secure and vigilant society? I strongly feel that the top brass should bring efforts to ensure that the Surveillance society is made strong and programmes rolled out for bringing the surveillance awareness till the bottom of the pyramid.