The recommendation to induct outside talent was also made by the three-member task force headed by Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, Jaswant Singh which had K C Pant and Air Commodore (retd) Jasjit Singh as members. The report was submitted to Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee last fortnight.

The private institutions are expected to be involved in policy-related research matters and will be used to provide reports, talking points and suggestions to the NSC.

Jasjit Singh told The Indian Express that he was among those who favoured such a merger. ``It would be logical for the JIC to form part of the NSC since the latter will provide for long-term intelligence planning and incorporate key decisionmaking along with coordination,'' he said.

The brief 10-page report of the task force also recommended that the NSC be convened within two months. The report was submitted to the Government along with a draft of the notification to be issued once the Cabinet gives clearance to the setting up of the NSC. A member of the task force explained that this had been done with a view to cut through ``the bureaucratic thicket''.

After the report of the task force was presented, there seemed to be be an agreement on the fact that the JIC should function as the intelligence gathering wing of the NSC, to coordinate all intelligence gathering and liaison with the Military Intelligence, Intelligence Bureau and the Research and Analysis Wing. A new concept is that all joint operations conducted by these agencies will be supervised by the JIC. The overall coordination and command, however, will be under the NSC.

The JIC which has been headless for the past 11 months and has a dozen officials. The strength is nowproposed to be increased with ten more officers of the Indian Police Service (IPS) being sent to it on deputation. As for ``outside talent'', the stress will be on academics and media persons with specialisations on Tibet, China and the Middle-East. As a senior official of the Ministry of Home Affairs puts it, ``We are looking for people who do not have a bureaucratic world-view. The more archaic the specialisation the better.''

Sources say the NSC will encourage participation from institutions devoted to the study of important issues such as energy which is a long-term national security issue. Besides, area experts on United States for instance who are not Government officials may be tapped to provide ``talking points'' to negotiators.

In a similar vein how best to present India's case to the US Congress may be helped by getting inputs from non-officials.