Forge Strong Partnership, Antony’s Message to Armed Forces, Academia and Industry

The Defence Minister AK Antony has called upon the Armed Forces to forge strong partnerships with the industry and the academia to secure the goals of national security. In a message read out in absentia at the inauguration of the two-day Defcom India-2011 Seminar on “Enabling ICT Infrastructure for Information Age Warfare” here today. Shri Antony said this partnership is vital to increase the technology threshold of our Defence Forces.

Inaugurating the seminar the Minister of State for Defence Dr. MM Pallam Raju stressed upon the various stakeholders to work in close concert with the armed forces to make our country strong and self-reliant. “National security is not the prerogative of the armed forces alone, it is essential that the best minds in the country contribute to this worthy cause. Indian industry, academia and Research and Development organizations can offer definite contribution towards this effort,” he said.

Pointing out that Information Superiority in today’s scenario directly translates into Combat Superiority, Dr Pallam Raju called for creating an extremely responsive and agile ICT infrastructure. He said that the greatest challenge for our armed forces is to transform to meet both current and future challenges in this uncertain world of the 21st century. “Having long relied upon military prowess and diplomatic skills to protect its interests on the seas, on land and in aerospace, our nation is now in conflict with stateless entities seeking hearts and minds, not merely land or treasure,” Dr Pallam Raju said.

In his address the Chief of Army Staff Gen VK Singh that the academia and the industry can help the armed forces leverage state-of-the-art technologies in executing dedicated ICT networks. “With the focus of the battlefield shifting to a Network Centric environment, it is imperative to augment our capabilities in the digital domain to maintain information superiority over our adversaries. Our information grid will be a potent force multiplier and will enable us to optimally use our weapon systems,” he said.