This year’s IB Centenary Endowment Lecture will be delivered by the Union Home Minister Shri Rajnath Singh here tomorrow. It would the 30^th lecture of this prestigious Lecture Series. Last year's IB Centenary Endowment Lecture was delivered by the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, while Finance Minister Shri Arun Jaitley had delivered this lecture in the year 2015. In the past Presidents of India including Shri Pranab Mukherjee and Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, Union Home Ministers including Shri Lal Krishna Advani, Shri Shivraj Patil and Shri P. Chidambaram have delivered this lecture. A large number of economists, scientists, educationists and corporate leaders have also had the privilege of delivering this lecture.

In his lecture the Union Home Minister Shri Rajnath Singh is expected to speak on  his vision for India's Policing in the coming years, particularly against the backdrop of increasing urbanisation, extraordinary pace of technological development, challenge of radicalisation and need for sensitive but effective Policing.

The Intelligence Bureau (IB) completed 100 years of its existence in 1987 and celebrated 1988 as its Centenary Year. On December 23, 1887, the Central Special Branch was set up under orders issued in London by the Secretary of State for India. The Central Special Branch was renamed as the Criminal Intelligence Bureau and, thereafter, as the Intelligence Bureau.

The yearlong Centenary celebrations in 1988 were marked by seminars, workshops and lectures on national security issues in different parts of the country in which the IB personnel interacted with public leaders, administrators, intellectuals and officers of other security agencies. The Centenary Year culminated in a week-long celebration in the capital. Dr Shankar Dyal Sharma, then Vice President of India, addressed the closing function on December 22, 1988 by delivering a lecture on the subject 'The Dynamics of Security Environment'.

After the first lecture by Dr Shankar Dayal Sharma, the Centenary Endowment Lecture was institutionalised and is being organised in the third or fourth week of December every year. Twenty-nine such lectures have been delivered by eminent speakers on a wide range of issues related to India's security, the development of the Indian polity and on the state of the nation.

The Centenary Endowment Lecture provides a wide cross section of Intelligence Bureau personnel an opportunity to hear intellectuals, leaders and thinkers on some contemporary issues. For all personnel of the Intelligence Bureau, the annual gathering is also an occasion on which they rededicate themselves to the highest levels of professionalism and reaffirm their commitment to maintain the unity and integrity of the country. In addition to IB personnel, the invitation is also extended to the select officers from MHA, PMO, Cabinet Secretariat, CPOs etc and ex-DIBs and Retired Senior Officers who have been associated with the IB/CPOs based in and around Delhi. Besides, the Probationer IPS Officers are also invited to the lecture. The address by the guest speaker is followed by a 30-minute interaction with the audience.

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