‘Countering faux narratives took Military’s 15% of time throughout Op Sindoor’: CDS Anil Chauhan

Chief of Defence Employees Normal Anil Chauhan on Saturday mentioned that one of many challenges that the Indian armed forces needed to face throughout Operation Sindoor was preventing a large disinformation marketing campaign.

Talking on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, Normal Chauhan mentioned, “Combating faux information was a relentless effort. Our communication technique was deliberate; we selected to be measured, not reactive, as a result of misinformation can shortly distort public notion throughout high-stakes operations.”

In line with the CDS, India’s method to managing narratives ought to deal with verified details and credible proof, even when which means the general public response is extra measured or delayed.

“India has at all times constructed its narratives on strong floor, even when we’ve typically been gradual to current them. For example, within the first three days, two ladies officers had been our main spokespeople as a result of the precise army management had been immediately engaged in fast-moving operations. It was solely after the tenth that the DGMOs got here ahead to temporary the media,” he added.

Officers spent 15 per cent of their time counteracting faux narratives throughout Operation Sindoor. “As somebody immediately concerned in these operations, I can say that cyber did play a job within the battle, however its impression was restricted,” Chauhan additional mentioned.

India deployed direct & oblique types of warfare

Throughout Asia’s largest defence convention, the CDS mentioned that India deployed each direct and oblique types of warfare towards Pakistani terrorist hubs, resulting in the destruction of 9 such hideouts.

He defined that whereas Pakistan could have used Chinese language industrial satellite tv for pc imagery, there isn’t any proof of real-time concentrating on assist. In distinction, India relied on indigenous techniques like Akash and succeeded by successfully networking its techniques, combining each home and international radars right into a unified defence setup. He emphasised this as a transparent instance of how modernisation has strengthened India’s border defence.

“Whereas each side did expertise assaults, together with some denial-of-service efforts, our army techniques are air-gapped, that means they’re not related to the web and are due to this fact largely safe. Assaults on public-facing platforms like faculty web sites could have occurred, however they didn’t have an effect on operational techniques,” Normal Chauhan mentioned.