We need cohesion amongst our different arms of security establishment to avert the tendency of monopolising intelligence sharing, former Punjab Special Chief Secretary KBS Sidhu suggested.

CHANDIGARH: The Indian constitution and legal framework is well-equipped to tackle security challenges, therefore there is no immediate need to have a notified National Security Policy for India, said experts at the Military Literature Festival (MLF) in Chandigarh on Saturday.

The views were expressed during a group discussion on the topic ‘National Security Policies in Democratic Countries’ at the 8th edition of the festival.

Sharing his thoughts during the discussion, Lt. Gen Surinder Singh (Retd) questioned the need for an advertiser policy framework, asking why a country should lay out its security plans and aims pubicly in the current volatile global security situation.

“While some countries like China aim for securitisation of everything, India needs better coordination amongst all its security agencies to tackle any emergent threat in an efficient manner,” he added.

“Our responses in a critical situation are narrowing each time despite spending millions of crores on security set up,” Singh said, raising the need to audit our measures and take correctives if required.

Laying out the role of Civil Services in ensuring overall defence stability of a nation, former Punjab Special Chief Secretary KBS Sidhu raised the question of whether democratic set up like India is a hindrance to having a National Security Policy as China, Pakistan or other democratic countries have.

“We need cohesion amongst our different arms of security establishment to avert the tendency of monopolising intelligence sharing,” Sidhu suggested.

He added, “India needs to make itself more resilient by ramping up the security infrastructure by investing more in defence.”

Earlier, during the discussion, Lt. Gen (Retd) Praveen Bakshi said that muddy waters of geo-political set up require dynamic approach for which concerted and time bound efforts are required to be taken aggressively for India to have a safe future.