Loss Of Critical Infrastructure

Indian Terrorist Group Naxalites Pose Big Threat to India Industry

The rising trend of Naxalites attacks on mining and related activities across Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Orissa, which is known as India’s mineral heartland, poses a serious threat to the growth of India’s mining industry.

During the last few years, Naxals and other Maoists have targeted critical infrastructure, transportation, energy, and resource systems in Indian states such as Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and West Bengal.

Industry analysts say that rising Naxalites attacks on mining activities are a deliberate attempt to slowdown India’s economy. Available figures suggest that as of 2009, Naxalites were active across approximately 182 districts in ten states of India accounting for about 40% of India’s geographical area. Naxalites are especially concentrated in an area known as the “Red corridor”, where they control some 92,000 square kilometers.

The area affected by Naxalism stretches from the border with Nepal to Karnataka state in the South India. In West Bengal areas west of Howrah are affected by the insurgency. It is believed that Chhattisgarh state is the epicenter of the conflict.

According to India’s intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing, as of 2009, some 20,000 armed cadre Naxalites were operating in addition to 50,000 regular cadres and their growing influence prompted Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to declare them to be the most serious internal threat to India’s national security. With rising naxal attacks, the Indian Central government has announced in February 2009 its plans for broad, coordinated operations in all affected states to plug all possible escape routes.

Naxals and other Maoists target mining operations as and when they get the chance. In April, 2009 Naxalite had attacked the National Aluminum Company’s (Nalco’s) Panchapatmali bauxite mines near Damanjodi in Orissa state, in which 11 personnel of the Central Industrial Security Forces (CISF) were killed. Nalco had suffered a production loss of over 100,000 tons of bauxite due to the suspension of the mining operations.

Reports suggest that the Maoists are engaged in illegal mining activities. Nexals are also reported to have engaged in theft of explosive material like RDX from the mines of Nalco and some other companies. NALCO uses RDX for explosion in mining related activities. A more recent report suggests that dispatch and transportation of bauxite from Pakhar mines in the Naxalite-hit area of Lohardaga district in Jharkhand state have come to a grinding halt since June 1, 2011 after a group of naxals torched six vehicles.

PCN Selected as One of North America's Top 100 Emerging Companies ...

“Using Crucial Working Wire, PCN Instantly Connects Private Data and Power Infrastructures to the Cloud”

SAN DIEGO – Monday, June 27th 2011 [ME NewsWire]

(BUSINESS WIRE)– PCN today announced its selection as one of North America’s Top 100 Emerging Technology Companies by Red Herring Magazine. The award has long been seen as an important accolade given to private technology companies poised to transform global markets.

For more than a decade, Red Herring’s editorial teams have diligently surveyed private businesses around the world. Technology industry executives, analysts, investors, and reporters have long regarded the Red Herring 100 list as an invaluable instrument to identify and discover the world’s next technology leaders.

PCN joins a unique membership with others singled out by Red Herring, including: Google, Yahoo!, Skype, Salesforce.com, YouTube, Twitter and others.

PCN was recognized for its innovation in communication and networking technologies. The company’s hardware allows critical infrastructure companies within commercial, industrial, energy, oil and gas, defense and transportation markets to easily and cost effectively “Connect to the Cloud.” This is accomplished by using wires already installed in their facilities without any impact on reliability or security of existing operations.

Regardless of the type, PCN’s sustainable products use existing wires to operate multiple disparate physical and virtual data systems enabling seamless convergence across an enterprise, if needed.

At the heart of PCN’s products lies a highly differentiated technology called “Conductive Media Communications,” which enables the transformation of existing wiring within critical infrastructure from private, proprietary networks that communicate serial data, to multiplexed Serial & IP enabled open standard networks which become seamlessly connected to the Cloud. The resulting benefit to customers is an Internet enabled infrastructure that simultaneously retains critical functionality without loss of reliability or security.

“PCN’s recent IP-485® and IP-iLoop™ products are achieving significant recognition for their instantaneous drop in for communication and security attributes. This allows critical serial data infrastructure to leverage IP Enabled & Cloud Based Applications which has been historically easy for non-critical IT operations that can deploy point-to-point Cat 5 wiring or wireless products,” stated Daniel Drolet, PCN’s SVP of Business Development.

Strategies for protecting national critical infrastructure assets, a focus on problem-solving

Critical Infrastructure Protection IV, Fourth Annual IFIP WG 11. 10 International Conference on Critical Infrastructure Protection, ICCIP 2010, Washington, DC, USA, March 15-17, 2010, Revised Selected Papers

Critical Infrastructure Protection III, Third IFIP WG 11. 10 International Conference, Hanover, New Hampshire, USA, March 23-25, 2009, Revised Selected Papers

Security and Loss Prevention, An Introduction

Defense Critical Infrastructure, Developing Training Standards and an Awareness of Existing Expertise Would Help DoD Assure the Availability of Critical Infrastructure