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It is a lesson new policemen in India learn early on: they are in charge of everything except perhaps the weather. Their duties range from maintaining law and order and investigating crime to rounding up beggars and disposing of unclaimed bodies.

This situation has come about because the responsibility for internal security in India is fragmented and lies with the different state police forces without a substantive role for the Centre. This glaring chink in India's armour was laid bare on 26 November 2008 in Mumbai, where the state machinery was completely unprepared to respond to the terror attacks despite several alerts, while the Centre stood by passively in the crucial first few hours.

Security and intelligence specialist Vappala Balachandran analyses the shortcomings of India's security system in Keeping India Safe. He traces the origins of the problem, makes a case for reducing the burden on the police to make them more efficient and offers solutions to fix the system.