New Delhi: Wary of China`s demonstrated anti-satellite capabilities, India is developing technologies and systems that will enable it to protect its space assets.
China had carried out its anti-satellite weapon system in January 2007, raising the hackles of the world`s space powers, including the US, Russia, France and India.
Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) chief V.K. Saraswat said at a press conference here that India did not believe in weaponisation of space and use of this global common for warfare.
But it is developing space-based capabilities to protects is assets such as satellites in space.
"We are developing systems to protect our space assets and to ensure the use of these assets are not denied to us," Saraswat said, when asked about the threats to Indian space assets from neighbouring countries that possess space warfare capabilities and what the DRDO was doing about it.
"We do not believe in use of space for warfare. Our philosophy is to use it only as resource... We have to make sure that our assets are protected and access is not denied to us. DRDO has a programme to protect our assets in space," he said.
Agreeing that India needs to take care of its space assets that faced threats from countries that have offensive capabilities in space, Saraswat said DRDO was working on systems to ensure access to India`s space assets is not denied to the nation.
He also noted that new threats were emerging to cyber security and two of the DRDO`s laboratories were working to develop suitable technologies to fight hackers.
India, particularly its defence establishments, have been victims of cyber attacks, allegedly from Chinese hackers. It is also said that China has built a hacker division in its armed forces exclusive to mount cyber attacks on governments around the world.
"There are new threats emerging in the field of cyber warfare. Two DRDO labs are working specially in this area. We are trying to see various ways to make our team competent in this regard so that we can monitor the flow of cyber traffic and look at the ways to encrypt and disrupt them," he said.
He said DRDO is not a war-fighting institution, but an enabler of war-fighting by warriors, be it in cyber space.
IANS
