June 01, 2022
Lieutenant General Manoj Pande took charge as India’s 29th chief of the army staff, replacing General MM Naravne who retired on April 30. Pande is the first officer from the Corps of Engineers to assume this position in the Indian Army. He was previously the vice chief of the army. As India’s chief of the army staff, Pande will lead one of the largest armies in the world.
He was trained at the National Defence Academy (NDA), Pune. In December 1982, he was commissioned into the Corps of Engineers. In his career spanning 39 years, he has held various prestigious command and staff assignments in conventional and counter-insurgency operations. During Operation Parakram, he commanded an engineer regiment along the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir. Before he took charge of the Eastern Command, he was the commander-in-chief of the Andaman and Nicobar Command. He received the Param Vishisht Seva Medal from President Ram Nath Kovind at the Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi on May 10.
Image Source: wikimedia.org
