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Indian Army to become network-centric warfare

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

New Delhi, April 15, IRNA -- The structural changes in the Indian 
Army in the form of a new post of Deputy Chief of Army Staff 
(information systems) will be complete by the end of May this year. 
According to local press reports, the thrust of the new thinking 
in Indian Army is to move away from the platform-centric warfare 
approach to become network-centric. 
The decision to have the new structure in place at Army 
headquarters was taken at the ongoing three-day Commanders` conference
taking place in Delhi. 
The Army top brass has been deliberating on various issues 
concerning the set up. 
Army sources said that the concept of new approach is convergence 
of information technology, information system and telecoming for 
developing a digital battlefield. A new post of director-general 
(information system) is also being created. 
The new system will come into place as the army is going to 
deliberate on a new military doctrine at the conference on Wednesday. 
The discussion on the new doctrine is being held in the "confidential"
section of the conference. 
A senior Army official said that the idea of creating a new post 
of director-general was necessitated as there was a new emphasis on 
the information system which was the requirement of the modern day 
warfare. The official said that the concept behind the move is to 
manage information available and utilizing it in planning operations. 
The Indian Army wants to build itself into a network centric 
organization which will reduce the time of action. The information 
systems will be different from the intelligence gathering. The 
official said that aspects like information warfare and intelligence 
will be integrated into the information system. 
The thrust is on managing information like operational research 
and system analysis which is part of perspective planning. The post 
of Deputy Chief of Army will continue to have other streams under 
him. 
Among the other issues cleared on Tuesday was raising of 66 new 
battalions of Rashtriya Rifles which is fighting terrorists in Jammu 
and Kashmir. As per the plan, by September this year 60 new 
battalions will be in place and six more would be added by June 2005. 
The raising process began in February and till date 54 have been 
included. 
The Army also felt that there was requirement of 10,000 junior 
leaders who will be trained in tactical operations. There are two 
schools for their training in Bareilley and Ramgarh. The training is 
essential as it determines the soldier`s vertical mobility. This 
will be strengthened to meet the requirements. 
The other decision was to made the Counter-Insurgency Jungle 
Warfare School at Northeastern Indian state of Mizoram more modern. 
The officials said that there have been requests from the 
Americans have more vacancies in the Jungle Warfare school and other 
countries have also shown interest in that. 
2160/1430/212 
End