Indian Navy chief moots greater defence, industry ties at NAVSIS'08 meet

New Delhi: The Indian defence forces and industry must come together on a formal platform, particularly in the information technology sector, which is increasingly relegating the other more traditional and conventional forms of warfare to the sidelines, said Admiral Sureesh Mehta, chief of naval staff and chairman, chiefs of staff committee.

Inaugurating NAVSIS 08, the Naval Symposium on Information Systems, Admiral Mehta said that Indian industry could help complement the Navy's IT needs by providing a good mix of security policy and up-to-date technology. "This was an opportunity for the Indian industry as the Navy was already implementing a number of projects that incorporate latest concepts and technology."

According to Admiral Mehta, the Indian Navy aims to leverage the power of IT and achieve net-centricity through collaborative integration and a strategic partnership with the industry. This was specially important as a number of projects are being implemented and there is a need to benchmark these as per prevalent international standards.

The two-day symposium is being jointly organized by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and the Integrated Headquarters of the ministry of defence (Navy). On the occasion, Admiral Mehta also released a technical journal and inaugurated an exhibition on information systems.

Earlier welcoming the naval chief, Ajai Chowdhry, chairman, CII national committee on IT/ITES & E-commerce and cairman & CEO, HCL Infosystems, expressed the optimism that the ongoing IT drive initiative by the Indian Navy would open more business opportunities for the Indian industry.

He said that the world over IT is being viewed as a 'force multiplier' and "at a time when the Indian Navy faces the task of meeting its needs with decreased resources and reduced manpower, it could use the strength of the domestic IT industry to meet its needs."

In his concluding remarks, Ashok Kanodia, chairman, CII defence sub committee on IT and communication, & managing director of Precision Electronics Ltd, said that the Indian defence sector, which has only recently been opened up, presents a window of opportunity for the Indian defence industrries. "There are immense possibilities, particularly in the IT sector, that have so far been unexplored. It is up to the industry to tap the unrealized potential that the Indian defence sector offers."

The two-day NAVSIS-08 will  deliberate on issues  such as next generation networks, network-centric operations, open source systems and SAAS, identity management, access control and surveillance, trends in it training, green computing, public domain for private use, ERP, enterprise information security management and encryption/PKI and Steganography.