Five years ago, a civil servant friend of mine was going to Calcutta from New Delhi. His wife asked him to make sure to check emails from their daughter, who was visiting abroad. “How can I?” replied the perplexed friend pointing out, “I am in Calcutta.”

It was shocking. I happened to be there and was dismayed at the ignorance of an otherwise brilliant officer.

The problem is that many senior, highly placed and top officers, like him, are just not computer-savvy and depend on their assistants to produce all the correspondence to their tables in printed form. This is despite the fact that the Government of India has made ample provisions for computers both in their offices and homes.

Net connectivity has revolutionsed every aspect of life and society, relations between people, and between people and organisations and governments.

The so-called Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) has taken place essentially due to this element, which enables a commander to track and deliver a weapon with precision and, increasingly, to farther targets without actually being there.

The days of James Bond will always be there, but the availability of ample information, of huge proportions, has become a challenge to protect. How secure are our computers is a billion dollar question.

The Chinese have been hacking computers of various governments and leading organizations worldwide. Computer experts in Canada and US have brought out a report recently of Chinese intrusions in computers of various Indian government bodies and two defence magazines, including India Strategic.

Intelligence is largely putting two and two together, and bits of information from here and there can provide valuable inputs to a potentially hostile country.

Although websites have information that is meant to be open, how a website is developed and presented can possibly indicate to the mindset of those controlling it. If it is callous – one known example is that of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) – then perhaps the computers of the organization operating it would also be less secure; precisely because of the callous - chalta hai - mindset.

Good, neat websites to disseminate what you want to, stand alone computers to deny net access, and as Winston Churchill said, some lies to guard the truth are necessary. The key element is the mindset, and there is an imperative need for a culture of cyber security in the Indian society.