Union Minister Kirti Vardhan Singh Launched Forest Wildlife Crime Management System ‘HAWK’ in Tamil Nadu.
Goverment Scheme
In August 2025, Union Minister of State (MoS) Kirti Vardhan Singh, Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC), launched a customized version of the ‘Hostile Activity Watch Kernel (HAWK)’, a digital forest and wildlife crime management system, for Tamil Nadu (TN) to curb wildlife crimes. With this launch, TN became the 3rd state in India, after Kerala and Karnataka, to implement the system.
- HAWK is designed to combat wildlife crimes by providing a centralized platform for forest departments to monitor, analyze, and act against illegal activities affecting flora and fauna. Its primary goal is to enhance forest surveillance and protect endangered species across TN.
- The system was developed by Wildlife Trust of India (WTI) in collaboration with Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT) Data, a Japanese Information Technology (IT) services provider. This collaboration brings advanced technology and analytics to strengthen wildlife crime management.
Main Point :- (i) HAWK operates through four integrated modules: Peregrine, Shikra, Harrier, and Kestrel. Currently, only the Peregrine and Shikra modules have been implemented in Tamil Nadu, focusing on monitoring, reporting, and preventive measures against wildlife crime.
(ii) The system uses Named Entity Recognition (NER) to extract offender names, locations, and aliases. It also applies network analysis to map criminal relationships and predictive modeling to identify potential poaching hotspots using historical data, enabling proactive forest management.
(iii) Before Tamil Nadu, HAWK was implemented in Kerala and Karnataka. The rollout in TN strengthens the state forest department’s ability to curb wildlife crimes, enhance surveillance, and protect endangered species, setting a model for other Indian states to follow.
About Tamil Nadu
Chief minister: M K Stalin
Governor: R. N. Ravi
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