NC3I Network

India is looking to tie-up with as many as 24 countries for exchange of merchant shipping data, even as its naval intelligence network to track ships in real-time has now finally become a reality six years after the 26/11 terror strikes.
The outreach to the 24 countries -spread from Africa's east coast to Malacca Strait -is being led by national security adviser Ajit Doval. Though this will take time to fructify, the Modi government is now all set to give the final nod to the national maritime domain awareness (NMDA) project to bolster multi agency coordination and augment ongoing efforts to strengthen maritime and coastal security .
The overall endeavour is to enable the country to keep track of both conventional and unconventional threats in its primary area of geopolitical interest across the Indian Ocean Region and “neutralize“ them if required. A major step towards this will be the inauguration of the central hub of National Command Control Communication Intelligence (NC3I) network, which can track 30,000-40,000 ships on a daily basis, by defence minister Manohar Parrikar at Gurgaon on Sunday . Taking feeds and inputs from multiple sources ranging from coastal radars to satellites, the Information Management and Analysis Centre (IMAC) will fuse, correlate and analyse them to assess threats at sea.
“It's very easy to guard land borders through fencing, electronic devices and pickets. But at sea, there is no such luxury .The NC3I network will alert us to unusual or suspicious movements and activities at sea,“ said assistant chief of naval staff (communications, space & network-centric operations) Rear Admiral K K Pandey on Friday .
It will then be much easier to intercept a fishing boat like Kuber, which was used by Ajmal Kasab and nine other terrorists to reach Mumbai and unleash havoc during the 26/11 strikes.