From NEET/CBSE to JLR and PSLV, our cyber vulnerabilities are outpacing cyber defences; Time to course-correct
Indians demonstrate the correctness of Murphy’s law repeatedly: if something can go wrong, it will. If it, miraculously doesn’t, we will find new ways to screw things up. While this is an unflattering view of the average Indian’s (and officialdom’s) chalta-hai attitude, let us step back and ask a different question: what is the single thread (apart from our own follies) that may (or may not) connect the NEET paper leaks, the CBSE exam paper mess (and denial-of-service attacks on the portal), the sudden appearance of the Cockroach Janta Party a few weeks ago, the Bangladesh and Nepal street protests of 2024 and 2025 that sent two incumbent governments packing, the crash of a Tejas aircraft during an airshow in Dubai last year and the endless delays in the delivery of engines for the Tejas programme by GE, the death of India’s first Chief of Defence Staff in a helicopter crash in 2021, and the failure of two PSLV launches - both carrying critical security and surveillance satellites -...