Lieutenant General Manoj Pande has been appointed as the next chief of the Indian Army. Lt-Gen Pandey will be the 29th Army chief and first officer from the Corps of Engineers to become the Chief of Army Staff succeeding General Manoj Mukund Naravane who is scheduled to complete his 28-month tenure on April 30.
The defence ministry on Monday announced: “Government has decided to appoint Lt Gen Manoj Pande as the next chief of army staff.”
Lt-Gen Pandey, an alumnus of the National Defence Academy, was commissioned into the Corps of Engineers in December 1982. The officer commanded an engineer regiment during Operation Parakram in the Pallanwala sector along the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir. The operation, which involved large-scale mobilisation of troops and weapons to the western border, followed the December 2001 terror attack on Parliament that brought India and Pakistan to the brink of war.
Lt-Gen Pandey, in his career, has so far commanded an engineer brigade in the western theatre, an infantry brigade along LoC, a mountain division in the Ladakh sector and a corps in the northeast. Before he took charge of the Eastern Command, he was the commander-in-chief of the Andaman and Nicobar Command.
As an independent media platform, we do not take advertisements from governments and corporate houses. It is you, our readers, who have supported us on our journey to do honest and unbiased journalism. Please contribute, so that we can continue to do the same in future.
