Bharat Rakshak is a website devoted to discussing India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

's military affairs. It was started and is run by military enthusiasts.

History

Bharat Rakshak was started in April 1997 by bringing together the individual websites of Indian Defence enthusiasts. The website was officially launched on 1 July 1997 by Seetal Patel and Rupak Chattopadhyay. While the concept of Open Source intelligence

Open source intelligence

Open-source intelligence is a form of intelligence collection management that involves finding, selecting, and acquiring information from publicly available sources and analyzing it to produce actionable intelligence...

, as defined by the United States intelligence community

United States Intelligence Community

The United States Intelligence Community is a cooperative federation of 16 separate United States government agencies that work separately and together to conduct intelligence activities considered necessary for the conduct of foreign relations and the protection of the national security of the...

, is still evolving in India, Bharat Rakshak has been cited as a website that could be held in the same category as its western counterparts.

The site gained some notoriety in December 2007, when it was cited for leaking the Official War Histories written by the Indian Ministry of Defence (MoD) that had remained classified for sometime.

Features

• An active discussion forum, which has been referred to in the press as a think-tank of Indian military issues.

• An online bookstore, which specialises in the sourcing of books related to the Indian Military.

• A multimedia section, with a considerable number of video clippings and audio recordings of Military marches played by the bands of Indian Army, the Navy and Air Force. It also includes a significant collection of books devoted to various topics like Military History, Security Issues and Nuclear Issues. Their articles on nuclear issues have received press coverage.

Related sites

On 15 August 2000, Bharat Rakshak launched a sister website called Amar Jawan. Amar Jawan website is dedicated to the personnel of India's Armed Forces

Indian Armed Forces

The Indian Armed Forces are the military forces of the Republic of India. They consist of the Army, Navy and Air Force, supported by three paramilitary forces and various inter-service institutions such as the Strategic Forces Command.The President of India is...

, it means "Immortal Soldier" in Hindi

Hindi

Standard Hindi, or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi, also known as Manak Hindi , High Hindi, Nagari Hindi, and Literary Hindi, is a standardized and sanskritized register of the Hindustani language derived from the Khariboli dialect of Delhi...

.