We claim to be an IT superpower (are we just one in the making, but never fully made?) and for at least several years now after we reduced tax rates to sensible rather than confiscatory levels, our state revenues have been rising dramatically. So presumably we have both the skills and the financial wherewithal to invest in making our police stations part of a modern, efficient, networked enterprise. But neither the Central government nor any state government (progressive or otherwise) has issued a simple tender document to Indian IT companies asking them to respond to a plan to do what can be done literally in a matter of months. Our mobile phone companies are able to build towers across the entire country and add millions of subscribers each month providing these customers with film songs, jokes, horoscopes, cricket scores and share prices in real time. Getting the police stations tapping into a networked centralised data base which includes printed texts, scanned documents, photographs, fingerprints and video footage within a matter of a year or at most two is technically feasible, eminently affordable and quite simply do-able.

The United States has introduced photographs and fingerprints at entry points like airports. This means that if you have a passport with a valid US visa and somebody steals it, he or she cannot get into the US as the thief will not have your face or fingerprints. The whole system was introduced in a couple of years and, according to reports, several thousand potential threats have been intercepted. In the United Kingdom, video cameras have been installed in a variety of public places. While this does not help much before-the-fact, it certainly helps in nabbing culprits after a terrorist attack. By their very existence they might be acting as a deterrent. Our breakthroughs have been a matter of good fortune. A journalist happened to have a video recording from the correct angle of Rajiv Gandhi’s last public meeting. If this “lucky” recording had not been there, we might still be grappling whether it was the LTTE or HUJI or some other mysterious force which killed him. A taxi driver with a good memory remembered dropping a couple off near the Gateway of India. Thank heavens for the taxi driver’s good memory. Otherwise, that blast too would have remained “unsolved”.

... contd.