Indian govt.’s plans for indigenous operating system gather momentum

The Indian government seems to be taking security risks posed by Western services quite seriously. There have been several reports of the government’s IT infrastructure being targeted. A few months back, the Indian government officials made public their plans of developing their own operating system. Back in February, a task force comprising of personnel from the Prime Minister’s Office, Defense, Home, Telecomm Ministries was assigned to the project.

An official said, "A sanitized, lower level operating system and application software may be preferred to the advanced versions, which necessarily require access to internet for upgrades." The government has ensured that computers with sensitive data or connected to crucial networks do not have Internet access thereby reducing possible cyber threats.

India’s security agency, the DRDO (Defense Research and Development Organization) has been working on the operating system and has setup a software development center in the nation’s capital. A dedicated work force of 50 software professionals will be working from Bangalore and Delhi. The team will be coordinating with Indian IT companies and institutes like the IIT on developing the operating system.

The DRDO Director General Dr. VK Saraswat  talking about the project said, "There are many gaps in our software areas; particularly we don't have our own operating system. So, in today's world where you have tremendous requirements of security on whatever you do...economy, banking and defense...it's essential that you need to have an operating system."

The on-going discussions with RIM to be able to access encrypted Blackberry emails are part of an effort to ensure India is better equipped to handle the new age security threats.