Q: Has India been utilizing Open Source Intelligence? How can OSINT be institutionalized in India?
Replied by Lt Gen Gautam Banerjee
What we obtain from ‘Open Sources’ – news paper reports, broadcasts, discussion forums, seminars, books, articles, papers and maps published by institutions etc. – are actually ‘information’, not intelligence. When such information is professionally processed for purposes like planning, decision making etc. in any field of activity, the information turns into workable data or statistics. One set of information may be of use in different ways for different purposes, whereas some are relevant for a particular purpose – education, construction, governance etc.
In the field of security, when information is corroborated, authenticate..