Nagpur: In American universities, students are not allowed to say anything pro-India, write papers, or even form associations. Any kind of Indian narrative is not allowed. However, one can find Indian students fighting for the rights of Palestinians at Stanford.
This is due to the narrative influencing their minds, said principal secretary to chief minister Brijesh Singh.He was speaking at a seminar on the ‘Role of youth in national security’ organised by the Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology (VNIT) on Saturday. “There is nothing wrong with fighting for someone’s cause, but for the Indian students, Palestine is not their monkey, not their circus, yet they have been taken over by the narrative,” said Singh.On the other hand, the Indian narrative is blocked at every level. This is not only limited to American academia but also flows down to think tanks and finally percolates to the tech platforms designed by them for world domination. For example, no matter how successful the surgical strikes, Balakot operations, and Operation Sindoor were, despite decisive, firm, and unprecedented action by the govt, doubts are created.
The narrative suddenly changes; it can be through Twitter handles, articles in the Washington Post, or other sources. Soon, Indians are even doubting the action. This is not accidental but a part of well-planned hybrid warfare, said Singh.One must know that the CIA — the US intelligence agency — has its own venture capital fund, In-Q-Tel. It was this firm that created Google. Similarly, a number of cybersecurity firms are created by the CIA.
Indians may be heading IT companies, but India does not own a platform of its own. This is a major gap in technological sovereignty, which cannot be complete until a country owns and makes platforms of its own, he said.Singh also called for improving the quality of research. Indian patents lag much behind those in China. Data centres are much talked about. However, India has less than 2% of data centres compared to the global capacity.
There is a serious need to plug these gaps, he said.Dial 1930 to stop cyber fraudCalling 1930 after a cyber fraud can help prevent the flight of money. Soon after funds are withdrawn fraudulently from accounts, they are split into multiple accounts. Dialling 1930 stops the flow of funds, and prevents the flight of money, said Brijesh Singh.An IPS officer, Singh is also a cybercrime expert. He also said that in cases of written online notices sent to threaten victims, a simple Google search by typing the message can show that it is a fraud.