A recent report suggests that many of the Government officials of India are still using gmail and yahoo for official communication, what is more surprising is that Indian Government do have there own secure mailing service, which is National Informatics Centre’s (NIC) email service
A proposal to this effect is being moved by Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY) for cabinet approval by month-end, Times of India reported
Government communication, barring those of ministry of defence and external affairs, will be done using the platform of the National Informatics Centre (NIC), they added.
Presently defence ministry has their own email server which is well secure, while some other parts of the cabinet are still using gmail and Yahoo mail for communicating.
The Announcement was done soon after the news comingย into flash that more than 5 Million gmail users were affected by a leak. Earlier this week Techworm reported , five million usernames and passwords of Google were reported to have been leaked online by Russian hackers.
All Government communication will be soon routed with the NIC server email, ย India has always been target of foreign Government being spying over them , with neighbours china and Pakistan included.
Some of the Government Communication are highly classified, and a leak of any source can cause serious problems
A total of ย aboutย 5-6 lakh central and state government employees will have to follow the new policies for using the email service provided by NIC. The Government will be spending more than RS 4-5 Crore to improve the fuctionality of the NIC servers.
The policy is expected to cover about 5-6 lakh central and state government employees for using the email service provided by NIC, they added.
The Recent snowden leaks and reports of countries spying each other may have also been a cause to take these steps and to ensure the privacy of the communication.