Editor,
June 27, 1937, Abraham “Abe” Karem was born in Baghdad, Iraq; his family later moved to Israel, where he later earned an aeronautical engineering degree from the Technion Institute of Technology. The Pentagon’s DARPA later funded and supported Karem’s drone technology.
As the spurt of alleged atrocities being meted in the other side of the 4096.7 Km land border shared with Bangladesh, India sent its best man Vikram Misri, Indian Foreign Secretary to get dialogue and back channels functioning but to everyone’s surprise Bangladeshi Bayraktar TB2 unmanned aerial vehicles were detected to have flown close to Sohra and Shella. Did they violate Indian airspace? These are important developments which the Ministry of Home Affairs and Ministry of Defence should immediately take on top priority.
Northeast India has a credible amount of important assets dedicated to the cause of defending our sovereignty, which has to remain classified. We recall that rogue elements in Manipur deployed drones to drop munitions on security personnel sometime this year.
India’s warm relationship with the Americans was witnessed in the signing of an agreement to buy 31 General Atomics Predator high-altitude, long-endurance drones at an estimated cost of $4 billion dollars but the need of the hour is a counter-drone technology, prioritising funding for these capabilities, training across all spectrum of the military and paramilitary through design and developmental programmes to mitigate such threats. It may be mentioned that Adani Defence and Aerospace have been at the heart of weapons development, especially in the division of unmanned air systems, which the Indian Navy recently inducted the Drishti 10 Starliner.
These issues do affect public safety and privacy; recently, mysterious drones appeared over parts of New Jersey and the East Coast in the US, some suggesting they were part of classified military exercises. As operational procedures and strategies advance, governments must prioritize public concerns, as accountability will eventually be demanded.
“Unmanning: How Humans, Machines and Media Perform Drone Warfare” by Katherine Chandler is a timely book discussing the historical changes in the creation of a technology which needs consistent oversight.
Christopher Gatphoh,
Laitkor Rngi,
Shillong-10
