Army Vice Chief Lieutenant General Manoj Pande was designated as the Indian Army’s new chief on Monday.
Moreover, he is the first Corps of Engineers officer to be named Chief of Army Staff.
Lieutenant General Pande would succeed General Manoj Mukund Naravane, whose 28-month tenure is set to end on April 30.
Meanwhile, on May 1, he will take office.
“Government has decided to appoint Lieutenant General Manoj Pande as the next chief of army staff,” the Defence officials told sources.
Further, Lieutenant General Manoj Pande was commissioned into the Corps of Engineers in December 1982 after graduating from the National Defence Academy.
Lieutenant General Pande Comanded Operation Pallanwala
Moreover, during Operation Parakram in the Pallanwala area of Jammu and Kashmir’s Line of Control, he commanded an engineer unit.
Following the terror assault on Parliament in December 2001, which took India and Pakistan to the verge of war, India launched Operation Parakram, a large-scale mobilisation of troops and weapons to the western frontier.
Lieutenant General Pande has commanded an engineer brigade in the western theatre, an infantry brigade along the LoC, a mountain division in the Ladakh region, and a corps in the northeast during his 39-year military career. Before taking leadership of the Eastern Command, he was the commander-in-chief of the Andaman and Nicobar Command.
Pande takes over as army chief at a time when India is putting out a plan for theaterization of the military to make the greatest use of the three services’ resources in future conflicts and operations.
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