Inder Vashishth / New Delhi
July 25, 2025: Union Home Minister today inaugurated the eighth edition of the National Security Strategies (NSS) Conference in New Delhi, reaffirming the government’s commitment to evolving a comprehensive security architecture in response to rapidly changing threats.
Organized by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), the two-day conference is being held in hybrid format, enabling participation from over 800 officers across the country, including senior police officials, Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs), Central Police Organisations (CPOs), and young field-level officers, alongside domain experts from specialized sectors.
Before the formal opening, the Union Home Minister paid a solemn tribute at the Martyrs’ Column, laying a wreath in memory of Intelligence Bureau personnel who made the supreme sacrifice in safeguarding national integrity.
Day One: Tackling Emerging Threats & Networked Crime
The first day of the conference saw intense deliberations on external threats, domestic linkages of hostile elements, and new-age technological challenges. Discussions included the role of foreign actors in fomenting unrest, their connection to narcotics trafficking, and terror-financing ecosystems operating through encrypted communication platforms.
The Home Minister issued specific directions to:
- Strengthen inter-agency coordination between central and state enforcement bodies to bring back fugitives involved in terrorism and smuggling.
- Recalibrate strategies to target the domestic nodes of terror-criminal networks.
- Create a dedicated multi-agency forum to find technological solutions to counter encrypted messaging apps used by terror outfits.
- Ensure a shift towards indigenous technologies across all police organizations, reducing dependency on foreign tools.
- Intensify financial intelligence operations to detect terror modules through anomalies in financial transactions.
Experts also explored security frameworks for uninhabited islands, advanced crowd management systems, and effective response mechanisms using AI and digital surveillance tools.
Day Two: Deep Dive into Aviation, Maritime & Counter-Narcotics Security
The second day (July 26) is set to focus on critical areas such as:
- Civil Aviation and Port Security
- Counter-Terrorism and Left Wing Extremism (LWE)
- Drug trafficking and coastal infiltration
Sessions will aim at building cohesive countermeasures involving multiple agencies and advanced surveillance infrastructure.
Institutional Legacy of the NSS Conference
The genesis of the NSS Conference can be traced back to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s directive during the 2016 DGPs/IGPs Conference, where he stressed the need for an annual strategic security dialogue platform. Since 2021, the conference has been conducted in hybrid mode to encourage broader participation from ground-level officers and ensure the integration of local experiences with national-level policymaking.
As India continues to face multifaceted security threats—from cross-border terrorism to cybercrime—the NSS Conference remains a vital forum to bridge intelligence gaps, foster innovation, and craft unified national responses.