About MI loss of powers, this is partly true, and it was bound to happen. For several years, MI ran its own services in parallel to other agencies, that were tasked to do nothing but observe and analyse; the other agencies, at that time, more than a decade ago, didn't 'exist', and even the military didn't know about them. There were some utterly bizarre incidents that happened at that time, when very puzzled military people at senior level tried to figure out why some scruffy civilians (some of them were really not well-groomed) were to be seen in the most secure of secure locations, both on border sites as well as in the air, and in electronics centres at specific locations.
But there are differences. MI has lost a little traction (one problem being that much of their resources are in Delhi, and subjected to poaching), but DNI is still a force to reckon with and has his own resources and runs a quiet little satrapy of his own. It helps that nobody wants to go to sea.
The third lot are very efficient and very high tech, but sometimes it is a little aggravating to hear them talk so glibly about their technology when some others had done so much of the ground work at the turn of the millennium. We were working with observation data in 99 and 2000, long before they came on board, and to hear them now it is as if they invented the damn business.
