Checking the Chinese: India to conduct thorough background checks

New Delhi, July 2: India sure does have a blow hot blow cold relationship with China. While steps are being taken on one side to resolve the boundary dispute and China appearing more than eager to do so, India will also bear in mind that it has other issues which it needs to resolve.

The most number of online hacks in India are courtesy the Chinese. Their hackers have shown a great deal of interest in India's telecom and defence sectors.

However India suspects that many Chinese are coming into country with valid visas and carrying out counter productive activities. India has decided that there would be a thorough background check on visiting Chinese before visas are issued.

Verifying the antecedents of Chinese visitors:

India will put in place very stringent norms for all Chinese visiting the country. There would be a background check which would be conducted first by the Indian Embassy in Beijing before a visa is processed. The embassy in Beijing will be empowered with the task of taking the final call on whether a visa ought to be granted or not.

The embassy would be tasked with the job of collecting as many details as possible ranging which would include the antecedents of the person before they can approve the travel to India. The intelligence agencies too would assist in this process.

While India proposes to extend the electronic tourist visa scheme to China as well, it has however made it clear that the background check will be stringent. The Electronic Tourist Visa system allows a person to apply for a visa online without having to visit the Indian mission.

Always be a step ahead of the Chinese:

Indian Intelligence Agencies have always warned about the problems that some elements in China have caused. They have probably one of the best cyber armies in the world and are constantly looking into as much information as possible.

India has faced several problems in the past when government files were hacked into and during the investigations it was found that some of the agencies hacking into Indian government files were in fact sponsored by the Chinese government.

China and other countries such as Pakistan will continue to snoop into data and while it may be difficult to tell them to stop, India needs to ensure that the security system is in place.

A few years back there was an incident in a high profile installation at Vishakapatanam in which an incident of a hack was reported. In this incident, the Chinese had managed to install a software into the systems which regularly generated information and passed it on the hackers in China.

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