A renewed focus on emerging technologies

Subject :Science and Tech

Section: Awareness in IT

Context:

Emerging technologies like cyber technology, Artificial Intelligence (AI), unmanned systems, and advanced computing are crucial for a nation’s military.

Use of emerging technologies in the military:

Under the ‘UDAAN’, the Indian Air Force (IAF) is using AI, cyber and virtual reality to address its operational, logistical, and training needs.
Indian Navy is using AI, unmanned systems and advanced computing for indigenisation under project ‘Swavlamban’.
India’s first drone platforms (based on emerging technologies) were inducted in the late 1990s by the Army.
India has launched communication satellites to improve its military communications capabilities.
- GSAT-7, a Navy-specific communication satellite, was launched in 2013, and GSAT-7A for the IAF in 2018.
In 2018, the government established the Defence Cyber Agency and the Defence Space Agency to address threats from new domains.

Defence Cyber Agency (DCyA):

DCyA is a tri-service command of the Indian Armed Forces.
Headquartered in New Delhi.
The agency is tasked with handling cyber security threats.
It draws personnel from all three branches of the Armed Forces.
The head of the DCyA is an officer of two-star rank and reports to the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) through the Integrated Defence Staff (IDS).
Indian Navy Rear Admiral Mohit Gupta was appointed in May 2019 as the first head of the DCyA.
As of 2021,DCyA was fully operational with Army, Air Force, and Navy establishing their respective Cyber Emergency Response Teams (CERT).

Defence Space Agency (DSA):

It is a tri-service agency of the Indian Armed Forces.
Headquartered in Bengaluru, Karnataka, India.
The agency is tasked with operating the space-warfare and Satellite Intelligence assets of India.
It draws personnel from all three branches of the Armed Forces.
The agency is expected to be converted into a full-sized tri-service military command in the future.
Origin:
- The Naresh Chandra Task Force was set up in July 2011 by National Security Advisor Shivshankar Menon to review the recommendations of the Kargil Review Committee.
- The Task Force recommended the creation of a cyber command, an aerospace command and a special operations command. All three units were proposed to be tri-service commands. The DSA is a downsized implementation of this proposal.

Source of this article: The Hindu