IT helps soldiers reach their families

A soldier sends his

wife a video mail from the front saying he is fine. Around a thousand

kilometers away his wife is able to see him talking to her. Sounds like

a distant dream in India…no, this isn't.

This is very much

a part of the services set up at Kargil for our soldiers who are ready

to lay their lives for the country.

NASSCOM, along with

defense services has set up twin facilities to help soldiers send communicate

with their families using the Net.

A video-conferencing

link has been set up at Kargil region. Six centers in the Kargil-Batalik

region are connected with this link. From these centers jawans can do

video-conferencing with their families.

Soldiers book the

time at these centers in advance and inform their families accordingly,

mostly on phone. The family members reach the local nodal center, being

set up in almost all cantonments and other defense areas, and can talk

to the soldiers real-time.

This has not been

very successful as you don't always get good video quality, but audio

quality is excellent.

The more popular communication

at the front is video e-mail. Video recording of the message is done using

a normal camera. The resolution is 760 x 640. The file is compressed and

sent to the respective family. The families can view the file recording

at the local nodal center.

The advantage is that

families can see the soldiers in flesh and blood and hear their voice.

NASSCOM is also planning

to launch a site ourkasmir. This will bring the cyber cast of what Kashmir

looks like every morning. This will be done in co-ordination with Delhi

Doordarshan.

"The site is an effort

to bring forth the real picture of Kashmir as opposed to the one projected

by Pakistan media", says Dewang Mehta, president NASSCOM.