Event reports
The extensive dialogues were organised by Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA), Forum for Strategic Initiatives (FSI) and India Police Foundation (IPF) in partnership with the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (KAS).
At his first meeting in IDSA prominent speakers were Sanjeev K. Singh, Additional DG Operation, Madhya Pradesh, where Mr. Matzdorf said that there is a need for development in classical investigation of counter terrorism, which would require more personnel, techniques and financial resources. Further in Q & A session, trends in criminality, cooperation with security partners and efficient utilisation of available resources were discussed.
He further said that to deal with crime at community, regional and international levels the cooperation between legal system and technology is important. As challenges faced by other countries are also same. There remains a lot of work to be done on cooperation aspect.
In the meeting with his Lordship Madan Bhimarao Lokur, Judge at Supreme Court of India issue of mob violence and techniques employed to control it were discussed.
At his meeting with with Forum for Strategic Initiative (FSI), prominent speakers were Maj Gen Dipankar Banerjee (Retd), leading international counter insurgency and counter terrorism expert and Consultant to the United Nations and numerous other international organizations, Balmiki Prasad Singh - former Governor of Sikkim and Home Secretary Govt of India, Ved Marwah - Former Commissioner of Police, Delhi and Director General National Security Guards; former Governor of Manipur, Mizoram and Jharkhand , Amb KC Singh, former Ambassador to Iran, Secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs in charge of Counter Terrorism Policies and official spokesperson Govt of India, Lt Gen Gurmit Singh (Retd) former Deputy Chief of the Indian Army and Corps Commander in charge of Kashmir and Brig Arun Sahgal - Director Forum for Strategic Initiatives and an eminent strategic expert.
After Gen. Banerjee welcomed everyoneas the Chair, Mr. Matzdorf drew attention towards the growing challenge of terrorism in world. He also emphasized on the need for developing new perspectives and analyses on forensics and the need to develop strategies. He said that there is a need for planning and decision-making, based on the available resources- financial, human resources and technical – and felt that there was a need to change the old perspectives and look at the new challenges afresh.
Balmiki Prasad Singh further expressed the need for peace enforcement to deal with terrorism, along with legal and technology regimes, which should be implemented through education. Former Governor Ved Marwah added that special laws should be framed in order to eradicate terrorism from the world.
Amb. K.C. Singh expressed that existing laws should be enforced to deal with different challenges of terrorism like for immigrant population in Europe and indigenous population in India. Gen Gurmit Singh hyphenated terror as T-error thus highlighting the ‘error’ aspect and how it can be dealt with. Gen. Banerjee concluding the session said that current socio-economic political issues have raised terrorism, which needed to be addressed in holistic manner. Further B.P Singh added that it calls for Inter-Faith dialogues.
At his last meeting with the Indian Police Foundation prominent speakers were N. Ramachandran President, Indian Police Foundation, Dr. Madan M Oberoi IPS, Special Commissioner of Police, Mr Raghu Raman, Group President, RIL and Former CEO, NATGRID, and Mr. Arun Mohan Sukumar, Head of the Cyber Security and Internet Governance Initiative, Observer Research Foundation (ORF). Mr. N Ramachandran introduced the distinguished Panel and welcomed the attendees to the discussion. He drew attention of the audience to the recent work published by Rand Corporation, ‘Radicalisation in the digital Era’ which looked at fifteen case studies of terrorism; each of which were planned and delivered on the internet, according to the research. Exemplifying the study, Mr. Ramachandran explained how internet is becoming a far more powerful tool in proliferating online radicalisation.
Mr. Matzdorf while acknowledging the impossibility of controlling the internet and the dark-net, highlighted the difficulties associated with understanding the many networks that have consequences on law enforcement. He concluded his talk by pointing to the huge mass of data thrown at us and the need to make sense of them by checking, filtering and the application of modern tools of data analytics. It was important to adapt to the rapid new changes in the field of cyber-space and for all countries to work together, he said.