Bangalore: India has started building a dedicated military satellite, a top Defence official said.

Dr V K Aatre, scientific adviser to Defence Minister and chief of Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), replied in affirmative when asked if India is building a dedicated military satellite.

Aatre, who was speaking to reporters after inaugurating a seminar on "Information & Network Security", organised by the Indian National Academy of Engineering, declined to give further details.

"It's too early to talk about it," he said. "I won't go into a project which we have just started".

To a question, Aatre said DRDO would recruit 700 scientists in the current financial year.

On 331 scientists of DRDO quitting it over the last three years for greener pastures in the West, Aatre said, "331 scientists leaving in three years is not much" but admitted that "it has certainly affected us".

A number of measures are being taken to attract talent into DRDO, he said.

Aatre also said that frequency hopping radio, radios for tank communications are currently being tested and the trials would be over in the next few days.

DRDO, he said, has also started looking at "steganography" where, he explained, one can hide information in a picture without changing the picture.

"It's just a beginning...it's a new subject...we are studying the science and technology of that," he commented.

Asked if India's Defence security network faced serious threat from cyber terrorists, he said, "Not really" but added that "there is no way one can make all communication foolproof".

A dedicated DRDO team is also looking at developing an intrusion detection system, Aatre added.

PTI