‘US intelligence agency monitoring emails in India'

New Delhi: India is reportedly one of the top five countries being thoroughly monitored by US foreign surveillance agency National Security Agency (NSA), a UK newspaper has reported.

India is placed fifth on the list with 6.3 billion pieces of intelligence being recorded from computer networks in March this year, the Guardian stated, as per a newspaper report.

Iran was placed on the top of the list with 14 billion pieces of intelligence collected, Pakistan came close second with 13.5 billion followed by Jordan, and Egypt with 12.7 billion and 7.6 billion respectively in March, the report states.

The monitoring is a part of US government’s data surveillance programme initiated to prevent terrorist attacks. US President Barack Obama has defended the newly revealed government surveillance programmes as a small price to pay for keeping America safe from terror attacks.

He acknowledged that the public may be uncomfortable with the broad reach of the formerly secret programmes, but he said he believed the government had struck the right balance between the need to fight terrorism and the need to protect privacy.

"You can't have 100 percent security and then also have 100 percent privacy and zero inconvenience," Obama was quoted as saying by the New York Times.

Sweeping up Americans' telephone records and monitoring Internet activity from overseas are "modest encroachments on privacy" that can help US intelligence analysts disrupt terror activity, he said.