General Manoj Pande took place as the 29th Chief of the Army Staff these days after incumbent General MM Naravane retired from service.
Gen Pande, who was serving as the Vice Chief, grew to be the first officer from the Corps of Engineers to helm the force.
Before taking incharge as Vice Chief of the Army on February 1, Gen Pande was previously heading the Eastern Army Command, tasked with guarding the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh sectors.
Gen Pande took charge of the Indian Army at a time India is going through myriad safety challenges, including alongside the LoC and LAC with Pakistan and China respectively.
As the Army Chief, he will additionally have to coordinate with the Indian Navy and the Indian Air Force on the government’s diagram to roll out theatre commands.
The theaterisation graph was being implemented by India’s first Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) Gen Bipin Rawat who died in a helicopter crash in December last. The authorities is yet to appoint Gen Rawat’s successor.
In his individual career, Gen Pande also served as the Commander-in-Chief of the Andaman and Nicobar Command (CINCAN), which is India’s solely tri-services command.
An alumnus of the National Defence Academy, he was once commissioned in the Corps of Engineers (The Bombay Sappers) in December 1982.
Gen Pande has held various prestigious command and team of workers assignments in traditional as well as counter-insurgency operations in all types of terrain.
He commanded an engineer regiment along the Line of Control for the duration of the Operation Parakram in Jammu and Kashmir, an engineer brigade in the western sector, an infantry brigade alongside LoC and a mountain division in high-altitude place of western Ladakh and a corps in the Northeast.
His group of workers exposures include Brigade Major of a Mountain Brigade in the Northeast, Assistant Military Secretary (AMS) in the Military Secretary’s Branch and Brigadier General Staff (Operations) at the Eastern Command headquarters.