With 3.5 lakh hits on just one site and ``mostly positive,'' the Army has launched cyber war this time with corporate help. The first cyber war memorial has been launched by a private company with full information on the Kargil war, details of the soldiers killed, operations and terrain provided by the Army.

With information on the Army's operations in Kashmir and the Northeast sought the world over, the Army is also planning to have a separate website on operationsin the Northeast. This will be handled by the Eastern Command Headquarters in Calcutta.

``This is the age of information technology. By the time information travels from Calcutta to New Delhi, is vetted by the Army headquarters and then put out to the world, it is too late. Now both the Commands involved in counter-insurgency operations will have their own sites and will update it every evening,'' sources in the Army headquarters said.

Northern Command already has a website on operations in the Kashmir Valley, along the Line of Control in Jammu, Poonch, Rajouri, Doda and along the Actual Ground Position Line (AGPL) in the Siachen glacier. ``The importance of a site was felt greatly during the Kargil conflict when queries came from all over the world about the conflict and the soldiers fighting it. First we tried to answer all queries on the site by the National Informatics Centre.

But the queries were far too many. We were being asked to call Pakistan's bluff by giving evidence on the Net. So we cameout with a site exclusively on Kargil. This is the fourth site, though not officially ours, but information is being provided by us,'' said an officer.

But this aspect of the cyber war has its own drawbacks.

``The Northern Command site maintained by the Srinagar based Corps was hacked earlier this year and anti-India material was put on it. Of course we detected it soon but it was embarrassing for us. The problem is that the Army does not have its own server and is dependent on somebody else. But now efforts have been made to make the site more secure, apart from putting a disclaimer on the contents in the other sites. Therefore, only the Kargil site is official,'' he added.

The response, according to an official in the Military Intelligence directorate, has been ``most heartening and positive''. In fact, the Army internally circulated an article published in a Pakistani daily which takes note of the cyber progapanda launched by the Army and its effects, and urges the Pakistani authorities to do thesame.

The response to the site includes suggestions even on errors made by the Army. With reference to the Shimla Agreement, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto has been called the President of Pakistan. A visitor suggested that the Army correct this mistake and put out more information on the latest events in Kargil, the Line of Control and Pakistan's misadventure.