Sharing terror data with the US: How effective is this move?

New Delhi, June 3: India and the United States of America both have agreed to share data on terrorists. First and foremost this is an arrangement and not an agreement. It was Rajiv Mehrshi, the union home secretary who signed this arrangement with US Ambassador Richard Verma.

Such an arrangement would help both countries on the war against terror. This was in fact proposed first by the United States of America in 2012, but it never moved forward owing to reservations from security agencies.

However this time around things have moved and India is confident that it would benefit a lot especially when it comes to terrorists using the social media.

Reservations at first

It was in 2012 when the US first proposed such an arrangement. The intelligence bureau had expressed reservations at that time. The IB had said that it would only benefit the US.

The IB felt that it would only India which would be sharing the data which ideally would mean the whole exercise would revolve round protecting US interests alone.

However this time around the modalities were worked out. It is a quid pro quo arrangement which would involve both nations sharing information. For India the benefit from such an arrangement would be to counter terrorists on the web space.

The US is better equipped in fighting cyber terrorism. Moreover the US also tracks terrorists faster on the internet and if there is suspicious activity then they could share the information with India.

An Intelligence Bureau official says that they did have reservations at first. However now it is a quid pro quo arrangement which would mean information sharing would be a two way street. The US too would benefit from us since we keep a close watch on terrorism in this region, the officer also said.

OneIndia News