Natgrid CEO P Raghu Raman: New face of Intelligence
You may not be interested in terror, but terror is interested in you.
By Ullekh NP, ET Bureau |
When he was in the army, P Raghu Raman wrote what he calls a “paper”, which one of his senior-most officers happened to read. Raman, now the CEO of National Intelligence Grid (Natgrid), concluded in his paper that the Indian forces adopted a farcical mix of the Nato and Warsaw doctrines; while the former alignment, equipped with state-of-the-art weapons, would not “cede an inch”, the low-cost-arms-using Warsaw line-up let enemy forces advance until the time was ripe for them to strike back. Raman wrote that India followed the Nato policy with cheap “Warsaw equipment”.
After reading it, the senior officer told his ward jokingly: “Anyone who writes like this is destined to either be a general or be court-martialed.”
For someone who can reel out detail after detail about “lessons” from the Second World War, other battles and even hostage crises—such as the one in Russia’s Beslan, much like a war historian, the army was perhaps not the right place to hang out for long. Raman, 47, who joined the Indian Military Academy in 1986 after graduating in commerce from Sri Venkateshwara College, Delhi, was destined to be elsewhere: he quit as captain in 1998 to pursue other interests.
“This is my sixth startup,” he says, referring to Natgrid, which got an in-principle approval from the Cabinet Committee on Security early this week. He hastens to add that “the Natgrid is not an organisation, but a tool”.
Raman says his isn’t some snoopy tool either. “Natgrid does nothing more than route information from 21 data sources to 10 user agencies ... it is like a Google of such data sources.”
Raman, who heads a team of some 40-odd people picked from the government and the private sector, argues that rather than promoting invasion into people’s privacy, Natgrid will protect all information and act as a deterrent to misuse of data; as per the initial plan, the user agencies can route their queries through Natgrid, which will function as a central facilitation centre, to “data sources” such as banks and airlines, they are the Research and Analysis Wing, the Intelligence Bureau, Central Bureau of Investigation, Financial Intelligence Unit, Central Board of Direct Taxes, Directorate of Revenue Intelligence, Enforcement Directorate, Narcotics Control Bureau, Central Board of Excise and Customs and the Directorate General of Central Excise Intelligence. These agencies will get bolted-down computer terminals for accessing information from Natgrid.
After reading it, the senior officer told his ward jokingly: “Anyone who writes like this is destined to either be a general or be court-martialed.”
For someone who can reel out detail after detail about “lessons” from the Second World War, other battles and even hostage crises—such as the one in Russia’s Beslan, much like a war historian, the army was perhaps not the right place to hang out for long. Raman, 47, who joined the Indian Military Academy in 1986 after graduating in commerce from Sri Venkateshwara College, Delhi, was destined to be elsewhere: he quit as captain in 1998 to pursue other interests.
“This is my sixth startup,” he says, referring to Natgrid, which got an in-principle approval from the Cabinet Committee on Security early this week. He hastens to add that “the Natgrid is not an organisation, but a tool”.
Raman says his isn’t some snoopy tool either. “Natgrid does nothing more than route information from 21 data sources to 10 user agencies ... it is like a Google of such data sources.”
Raman, who heads a team of some 40-odd people picked from the government and the private sector, argues that rather than promoting invasion into people’s privacy, Natgrid will protect all information and act as a deterrent to misuse of data; as per the initial plan, the user agencies can route their queries through Natgrid, which will function as a central facilitation centre, to “data sources” such as banks and airlines, they are the Research and Analysis Wing, the Intelligence Bureau, Central Bureau of Investigation, Financial Intelligence Unit, Central Board of Direct Taxes, Directorate of Revenue Intelligence, Enforcement Directorate, Narcotics Control Bureau, Central Board of Excise and Customs and the Directorate General of Central Excise Intelligence. These agencies will get bolted-down computer terminals for accessing information from Natgrid.
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Raman left the army while he was posted near Pune, not far from the Mahindra United World College of India where 200 students, from around the world, come and study for two years. Back in 1998, they wanted internet connection to get in touch with families back home, but since the school was situated in a hill, government agencies thought they could do nothing to help. Someone from the school approached Raman who was serving his notice period after putting in his papers in the army. He did initial surveys of the place and finally found success through what he describes as “the art of assembling a team”.Soon, he got a job offer from industrialist Anand Mahindra. He joined the Mahindra Group as chief of operations of its used car business. Later in 2000, he shifted to the Mahindra Special Services Group before taking over as the CEO of the joint venture between Mahindra and British Aerospace, Mahindra Defence Land System, in 2009. During his time at Mahindra, he took two breaks to do executive MBA, at Kellogg as well as at Wharton, and that opened up another avenue: teaching.
Raman teaches “leadership” at business schools such as the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad, Welingkar Institute of Management Development & Research, Mumbai, and several other institutes. What sets him apart is his out-of-the-box approach, says K Ramkumar, executive director at ICICI Bank.
He remembers Raman coming up with an idea a few years ago: MBA admission for students from disadvantaged backgrounds, students who didn’t even attempt the common entrance exam. Uday Salunkhe, director of the Welingkar Institute, gave the green signal and 14 “top” students at an MBA class were given the task of training these two students. If the students passed the exams, Ramkumar would hire them. After two years, they not only secured pass marks, but, in Raghuraman’s words, “also beat four of their classmates”.
Ramkumar vividly remembers that distant Wednesday of November 2008 in Mumbai when he called up Raman for emotional support. “Some of our Korean partners were staying in Oberoi when the terrorists struck on 26/11.” Raman spoke constantly on the phone for nearly two days with these people trapped inside, appealing them not to panic and instructing them on the “dos and don’ts during a terror strike”. Adds Ramkumar: “He did all this despite the fact that he had lost two friends in the terror strike.”
For his part, Raman declines to speak more about himself and the incident, and instead insists that Natgrid is a step in the right direction to close the loopholes in India’s security system that resulted in the successful execution of such an attack. In fact, the idea for Natgrid was floated after the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack.
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Everyone who knows Raman says he is a doer, but at least two government officials say, requesting anonymity, that he is too aggressive for the job that needs “softer handling and diplomatic skills”. But, for the time being, Raman’s concerns are altogether different: “You may not be interested in terror, but terror is interested in you,” he says.Download
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