From CK Nayak
NEW DELHI, April 5: A new study has cautioned against Starlink’s entry into the Northeast through Meghalaya, citing concerns relating to insurgency in parts of the region.
Recently, the Meghalaya government signed a letter of intent with the Elon Musk-funded company for high-speed internet services in the state.
“Starlink contravenes its own terms of service by operating in Myanmar, where it lacks official licensing. It does not implement a strict geo-fence, assuming that ethnic, armed and insurgent groups, supported by external actors, will continue to rely on the satellite connectivity it offers,” the study conducted by Delhi-based Observer Research Foundation, a strategic think tank, said.
In the recent past, Starlink terminals were smuggled into Myanmar via Thailand or Bangladesh by transnational criminal organisations and terrorist groups, it added.
The Arakan Army, now controlling substantial territorial regions of Rakhine State, views this import as taxable—a service provided by the rebels’ governance structures independent of the telecommunications services offered by the junta government—marking a gradual establishment of satellite communication autonomy. This process occurs as large territorial tracts remain outside the junta’s control, with external support, it went on to add.
The Northeast, so far insulated from any major external disturbances, unlike the Western sector bordering Pakistan, is emerging as a drone-satcom battlespace, necessitating advanced anti-drone and jungle-warfare preparedness against externally enabled insurgent threats, according to the study.
Incidentally, in a recent development, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) arrested one United States citizen and six Ukrainians for conspiring and assisting in terrorist activities against India by using drones. The NIA highlighted that they were involved in the illegal importation of drones from Europe, intended for use by ethnic armed groups in Myanmar and Mizoram, as well as the supply of weapons, logistical support, and training.
While the arrest is a landmark anti-terror operation, the Indian armed forces have also enhanced their signals intelligence and counter-drone capabilities in the Northeast and the frontier regions, the Observer Research Foundation said.
The creation of this panopticon necessitates that India maintains proactive counter-terror, counter-insurgency, and jungle-warfare preparedness, the study said.
“India’s prospective Eastern Theatre Command and the Drone Forces need to prepare for such an insurgent and terrorist-laden landscape along its eastern and northern jungle borders, which receives battle-tested cutting-edge space and drone technologies,” it said.
Countering the challenges of jungle warfare will become a pivotal task for the Indian Drone Forces, recently announced in the Defence Forces Vision 47 document released by the Integrated Defence Staff.
The Indian armed forces now employ a varied suite of anti-drone signal-interception and neutralisation technologies. Soft-kill methods include spoofing and jamming of satellite navigation and radio frequency signals, it said.
Hard-kill methods, such as 30–300 kW short and long-range directed energy weapons, can target drones at distances of 3–20 km. Kinetic interception is also being used to counter swarm drones and loitering munitions, which usually have very low radar cross-sections.
The Situational Awareness for Kinetic Soft and Hard Kill Assets Management (SAKSHAM) and Akashteer counter-drone air-defence system, along with the Drone Detect, Deter and Destroy (D4) System, operate across sensors. Frontier patrols of the Indian armed forces are now equipped with anti-drone vehicles that include jammers, multi-gun vehicle-mounted systems, and net-based interception capabilities.
Since 2022, external non-regional actors interested in the Indo-Southeast Asian region have brought lessons, battle-hardened operatives and weapons technology developed on the Ukrainian front lines, intending to make the region their panopticon—a watchtower to oversee the players and the landscape they intend to control. Drone-tech is rapidly evolving to eliminate operational obstructions caused by signal jamming, spoofing, and telecom network unavailability.
