🗞️ Why in News Union Home Minister Amit Shah inaugurated the 9th National Security Strategies (NSS) Conference-2026 in New Delhi on August 24, 2026, and directed that AI-based analysis of information on Multi Agency Centre platforms be used to create standard operating procedures.
The Conference
| Element | Detail |
|---|---|
| Edition | 9th, two-day |
| Format | Hybrid, with over 850 participants |
| In person | Ministers of State for Home Affairs, the Union Home Secretary, Deputy NSAs, heads of CAPFs and CPOs |
| Virtual | DGsP of States and Union Territories, cutting-edge-level young police officers, domain experts |
The NSSC has been held annually in hybrid format since 2021, on the Prime Minister’s direction. The Home Minister laid a wreath at the Martyrs’ Column in remembrance of Intelligence Bureau personnel before the inauguration.
Day one covered counter-terrorism response, fusion and operationalisation of intelligence through the Multi Agency Centre (MAC), a vision document on narcotics control, detection and deportation of illegal migrants, and a policy framework against cyber-crime and proxy warfare.
Day two was to address sub-aerial system threats (drones and unmanned aerial systems), securing the blue economy, information warfare and a bio-security framework.
What the Multi Agency Centre Is
The MAC is the shared intelligence-fusion platform run under the Intelligence Bureau. It originated in the recommendations following the Kargil Review Committee and the associated Group of Ministers process, and was substantially strengthened after the 26/11 Mumbai attacks. Its function is to pool intelligence inputs across agencies that would otherwise hold them separately.
The Directions Given
- Training for implementation of MHA’s PRAHAAR scheme
- Expediting trials by bringing back fugitives and by using trial in absentia provisions
- An integrated approach to UAPA investigations
- AI-based analysis of information on MAC platforms to create SOPs
On PRAHAAR: the scheme is named in the official release without expansion. This edition therefore does not spell out the acronym, because an invented expansion is worse than an unexpanded name.
Critical Analysis
The agenda itself is the story. Read the day-two list again: drones, maritime economic assets, information operations, bio-security. “Internal security” has widened well beyond insurgency and terrorism into domains where both the legal mandate and the institutional owner are unsettled. Who owns counter-drone authority over private property? Which ministry leads a bio-security incident? These are not rhetorical questions; they are gaps.
The sharpest thread is algorithmic triage over fused intelligence. Intelligence fusion concentrates data by design. Running AI analysis over that concentration and generating SOPs from the output raises questions of accountability, error propagation and oversight that India’s security architecture has no statutory framework for, because there is no comprehensive intelligence-oversight legislation. An error in a fused, algorithmically triaged system propagates across every agency drawing on it, and there is no external body positioned to catch it.
Trial in absentia is an efficiency gain with a rights cost. The provision is genuinely useful against absconders who have placed themselves beyond process. It also sits in tension with fair-trial guarantees under Article 21, and the safeguards — adequate notice, mandatory legal representation, the right to seek retrial on return — are what determine whether it is a tool or a shortcut.
The honest framing. None of this argues against fusion or against AI. It argues that capability is being built faster than the oversight architecture around it, and that the gap is a design choice rather than an oversight.
UPSC Relevance
GS Paper 3 (Internal Security): Challenges to internal security through communication networks; the role of media and social networking; basics of cyber security; linkages of organised crime with terrorism; security agencies, their mandate and structure.
Prelims focus: what MAC is and which agency runs it; its origin in the Kargil Review Committee process; the NSSC’s annual hybrid format since 2021; the UAPA’s 2019 amendment permitting designation of individuals as terrorists; trial in absentia under the BNSS, 2023.
Mains angle: Argue that the widening of internal security into drones, maritime and bio domains has outpaced the statutory mandate, and that intelligence fusion plus algorithmic analysis needs an oversight framework India does not have. A strong answer names the absence of comprehensive intelligence-oversight legislation rather than gesturing at “accountability”.
Way forward: Legislate a statutory oversight mechanism for intelligence agencies with parliamentary reporting; require auditability and human sign-off for any AI-generated SOP acting on fused intelligence; clarify institutional ownership for counter-drone and bio-security response before an incident forces it; and pair trial in absentia with mandatory legal representation and a retrial right.
📌 Facts Corner — Knowledgepedia
The Conference:
- 9th National Security Strategies (NSS) Conference-2026, New Delhi, inaugurated August 24, 2026, two-day
- Hybrid format, 850+ participants; held annually in hybrid format since 2021 on the Prime Minister’s direction
- Inaugurated by Amit Shah, who holds Home Affairs and Cooperation
- Day-two themes: sub-aerial systems, blue economy security, information warfare, bio-security framework
Multi Agency Centre:
- Shared intelligence-fusion platform run under the Intelligence Bureau
- Originates in the Kargil Review Committee and Group of Ministers process; strengthened after 26/11
- Direction given: AI-based analysis of MAC platform information to create SOPs
Legal provisions referenced:
- UAPA = Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967; the 2019 amendment allows designation of individuals, not only organisations, as terrorists
- Trial in absentia for proclaimed absconders is provided by the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, a provision absent from the old CrPC
- PRAHAAR is an MHA scheme named in the release without an expansion; do not invent one
Sources: PIB, Ministry of Home Affairs
Source: Ninth National Security Strategies Conference Opens; AI Analysis Directed Over Multi Agency Centre Intelligence — Ujiyari.com | Free UPSC & State PCS Current Affairs
