INSIDE RAW

Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW) is India's external intelligence agency. Its headquarters are on Lodhi Road in New Delhi.

Around the end of 1966 the concept of a separate foreign intelligence agency began to take shape. In 1968, after Indira Gandhi had taken over, it was decided that a full-fledged second security service was needed. R. N. Kao, then a deputy director of the Intelligence Bureau, submitted a blueprint for the new agency. Thus the India's first foreign intelligence agency named as the Research and Analysis Wing or R&AW. R&AW has been organized on the lines of the CIA[13]. Most of the occupants have been experts on either Pakistan or China. They also have the benefit of training in either US or the UK, and more recently in Israel.

Functions of R&AWCollection of information:

R&AW obtains information critical to Indian strategic interests. Both overt and covert means are adopted.
Classification of information: Data is sifted through, classified as appropriate, and filed with the assistance of the computer network in the 13-story bombproof building situated at Lodhi Road, New Delhi.
Aggressive intelligence: The primary mission of R&AW includes aggressive intelligence which is comprised of espionage, psychological warfare, subversion, sabotage, and promoting insurgency in enemy locations.
Counter intelligence: R&AW has a dedicated section which spies against enemy's intelligence collection oganizations. With unscrupulous enemy agencies abounding in Indian neighbourhood, this is the second most important function of R&AW. However due to failure of R&AW in containing high profile defections, major portions of Counter intelligence operations have been handed to IB.

Training of R&AW AgentsRecruitment Initially, many candidates are taken from the police and other services. Later R&AW began directly recruiting graduates from universities. Today R&AW has its own service cadre, the Research and Analysis Service (RAS) to absorb talent. The criteria for selection are fairly stringent.

Extensive Training:

• Technical jargon and classification of information are taught.
  
• Case studies of other agencies like CIA, KGB, Chinese Secret Agency and ISI are presented for study.
  
• The inductee is also taught that intelligence organisations do not identify who is friend and who is foe, the country's foreign policy does.Given firsthand experience of what it was to be out in the figurative cold, conducting clandestine operations.
  
• Instructed to avoid capture and, if caught, how to face interrogation.
  
• Learns the art of reconnoiter, making contacts, and, the numerous skills of operating an intelligence mission.
  
• Exhaustive training in the art of self-defense, an introduction to martial arts and the use of technical espionage devices.
  
• Drilled in various administrative disciplines so that he could take his place in the foreign missions without arousing suspicion.
  
• He is now ready to operate under the cover of an Embassy to gather information, set up his own network of informers, moles or operatives as the task may require.

References:Wikipedia,FAS.