The Intelligence Bureau (IB) (Hindi: आसूचना ब्यूरो; IAST: āsūcanā byūro) is India's internal security and counter-intelligence agency under Ministry of Home Affairs. It was founded in 1887 as Central Special Branch, and is reputed to be the oldest such organization in the world. Until 1968, it handled both domestic and foreign intelligence after which Research and Analysis Wing was formed specifically for foreign intelligence following that IB was primarily assigned the role of domestic intelligence and internal security. Tapan Deka, the current director of the IB, took over from Arvind Kumar on 24 June 2022. History In 1885, Major General Charles MacGregor was appointed Quartermaster General for the British Indian Army at Simla and thereby became responsible for its intelligence activities. The main concern of the time was to monitor Russian troop deployments in Afghanistan so as to avoid an invasion of British India from the northwest. In 1909, the Indian Political Intelligence Office was established in England in response to the development of Indian revolutionary activities. It came to be called Indian Political Intelligence (IPI) in 1921, constituting a surveillance and monitoring agency run jointly by the India Office and the Government of India and maintaining close contact with Scotland Yard and MI5. After Indian independence in 1947, IPI was renamed as the Intelligence Bureau under the Ministry of Home Affairs. Responsibilities Shrouded in secrecy, the IB is used to garner intelligence from within India and also execute counter-intelligence and counter-terrorism tasks. The Bureau comprises employees from law enforcement agencies, mostly from the Indian Police Service (IPS) or the Indian Revenue Service (IRS) and the military. However, the Director of Intelligence Bureau (DIB) has always been an IPS officer. In addition to domestic intelligence responsibilities, the IB is particularly tasked with intelligence collection in border areas, following the 1951 recommendations of the Himmat Singh Ji Committee (also known as the North and North-East Border Committee), a task entrusted to the military intelligence organisations prior to independence in 1947. All spheres of human activity within India and in the neighborhood are allocated to the charter of duties of the Intelligence Bureau. The IB was also tasked with other external intelligence responsibilities as of 1951 until 1968, when the Research and Analysis Wing was formed. Activities and operations The Intelligence Bureau reportedly has a lot of successes to its credit, but operations conducted by the IB are rarely declassified. Due to