Letters: Security in self-sufficiency

Both the editorial "The foreign spine" and Ajit Balakrishnan's article "As bytes replace guns" (May 15) highlight the encompassing and critical nature of the internet and cyber security. Over 60 per cent of our telecommunication hardware is imported, mostly from Chinese telecom equipment manufacturers. Chinese communications technology giant Huawei is under increasing scrutiny across the world for its close links with the Chinese government. Ren Zhengfei, a former technologist in the People's Liberation Army, founded Huawei in 1988 and it is now the world's largest telecoms manufacturer. China's increasing control of telecoms infrastructure centred on "added functions" that could be built covertly into large-scale systems, potentially giving one country the ability to shut another's communications networks. Washington Post, The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, the US and Indian government and Tibetan institutions have been hacked.

As state-sponsored cyber-attacks, drones and the Stuxnet virus have shown, warfare pursued with information technology and robots, with no loss or bloodshed is the 21st century's reality. Global Times, the voice of the Chinese communist party, recently scoffed at India's excessive dependence on foreign suppliers for arms procurement. It said, "But for how long can borrowed weaponry lead to genuine security?" We need to learn from this. In that sense, the government's decision to boost self-reliance in arms and telecommunication equipment is in the right direction.

H N Ramakrishna, Bangalore

Letters can be mailed, faxed or e-mailed to:
The Editor, Business Standard
Nehru House, 4 Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg
New Delhi 110 002
Fax: (011) 23720201 · E-mail: letters@bsmail.in
All letters must have a postal address and telephone number