India to set up a National Counter-Terrorism Centre

New Delhi, Jan 12 (PTI) The Indian government Thursday gave its approval to set up the National Counter-Terrorism Centre (NCTC) which will act as the nodal agency for all anti-terror activities in the country. The Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS), headed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, gave its nod to set up the NCTC which will streamline all terror- related intelligence, analyse them and forward to concerned agencies for action, official sources said. A pet project of India's Home Minister P Chidambaram, the NCTC will be the nodal agency for all counter-terrorism activities and coordinate with intelligence agencies such as Intelligence Bureau (IB), Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) and the intelligence agencies of the constituent states of the Indian Union. The NCTC will connect Multi Agency Centre (MAC), which would be subsumed into NCTC, and all agencies reporting to it in Delhi and state capitals. Between the Centre, where almost two dozen agencies coordinate with MAC, and the states nearly 500 stakeholders are involved in counter-terror activities. But the NCTC will not have any foot-soldier to collect information for which it will depend on the other agencies. It will be set up through an executive order which will be issued soon. The government will not bring a legislation for setting up of this anti-terror body, unlike the National Investigating Agency which was created through an Act. The head of the body will report to India's Home Secretary. PTI