cher@ihlpm.UUCP (Mike Cherepov) (02/07/85)
----- Recently there appeared a story about a fellow that was selling Indian secrets to both East and West. I was wondering about the nature of the info he was selling: it is an important clue to the interests of ths superpowers in that country as well as to other things. It is unlikely that the object of espionage was hi-tech warfare info: India can not match the pace of military research by USSR, let alone US. Conventional military info is valuable to Pakistan, China, other neighbors, but was it worth the risk to West Germany and Poland? Or did they pass it along to more interested players in the region? Or was it just "keeping in touch" politically, with intent to be able to influence the Indian political situation when the time is "right"? Does anybody know the details of the whole story? Mike Cherepov
prakash@alberta.UUCP (PRAKASH B.K.) (02/08/85)
> > ----- > > > Does anybody know the details of the whole story? > No secret is the whole secret.
jis1@ahuta.UUCP (j.mukerji) (02/08/85)
REFERENCES: <127@ihlpm.UUCP> I was in India when the spy scandal broke. My understanding is that the information that was being passed out related to the plans of the Government of India for the modernization of the armed forces and the telecommunication system, and perhaps info on what kind of incentives to appropriate government officials could clinch a large sale of arms or communication equipment to the Govt. of India. As far as I can tell it did not have much to do with selling the secrets of the east to the west and vice-versa. India is in the market for buying technology to modernize its defence and communication systems. Countries like France, Japan and the USSR are vying with each other to get a piece of the pie, because a lot of these purchases are going to be in hard currency. It is already known that a French and a Russian deplomat have been declared persona-non-grata in connection with this scandal. Also a large number (22?) of relatively high level secretaries in the Prime Ministers secretariate and several other strategic ministries have been arrested. In this connection, one may recall that India signed a large contract for telephone equipment with CIT-Alcatel sometime back over the strainous objections of many technocrats. There was an interesting article on that deal in one of the issues of India Today last year (I don't recall which at this moment). Any further information on this will be most appreciated. Jishnu Mukerji