Intelligence agencies

Published on 08 Feb 2025

A government agency responsible for the collection and analysis of information for facilitating law enforcement and ensuring public safety and national security. India has several intelligence agencies each specializing in their domain. A brief regarding the functions of each is given below.

Note: CBI and NIA are investigative agencies

Needs to bring Intelligence reforms / Issues with present intelligence system

• Lack of inter-agency coordination: Limited coordination and information sharing between different intelligence agencies can result in gaps in threat assessment and response.

• Example: Lack of cooperation resulted in inability to act quickly during the 2008 Mumbai terror attack.

• Obsolete technology: Many of the intelligence equipment is outdated which reduces the efficiency of counter insurgency operations.

• Example: Increasing cyber-attacks on critical databases shows inability of cyber intelligence agencies.

• Insufficient skilled human intelligence: Limited resources have created challenges in recruiting the best personnel to gather on ground information.

• Political interference: Political pressure can impact intelligence agencies autonomy and objectivity in gathering and reporting information.

• Example: Recent decision of the government to increase the term of CBI director to 5 years on an extendable basis has raised questions on their independence.

• Budgetary constraints: Limited funding for intelligence agencies can hinder their ability to invest in advanced technologies, training and infrastructure.

• Example: USA’s intelligence budget alone is twice that of India’s entire defence budget.

• Limited public accountability: Lack of transparent mechanism for public oversight and accountability can lead to misuse of power.

• Example: Recently many operations of IB have been questioned due to possible misuse of power for serving political agenda.

• Legal and ethical concerns: Balancing the need to gather information with fundamental rights like  liberty and privacy.

• Example: Storing the biological data of criminals for 75 years under the Criminal Procedure Identification Act has raised privacy concerns. 

Initiatives taken & Way Forward

• Improvement in Signal Intelligence capabilities: Better capability in intercepting and analysing communication signals for information retrieval.

• Institutional mechanisms: Establishing National Cyber Crime Coordination Centre to address the potential rise of cyber threat.

• Intelligence sharing mechanism: The Joint Counter Terrorism Centre facilitates the sharing of intelligence among various agencies to counter terrorism.

• Strengthen Human Intelligence efforts: Recruiting and training more human operatives to gather information from on ground sources.

• Collaboration with international partners: Many of these security concerns are transboundary, which demands coordination with like-minded countries.

Tags:
Security

Keywords:
National security architecture Intelligence agencies RAW IB

Syllabus:
General Studies Paper 3

Topics:
Internal Security