Gen. Manoj Pande succeeded incumbent Gen. Manoj Naravane as the 29th Army Chief on Saturday, becoming the first officer from Engineers Corps to command the 1.3 million-strong Army.
With his appointment, all three Service Chiefs are now graduates of the National Defence Academy’s 61st Course (NDA). He was announced as the New Army chief of Mid of April.
The next CDS is yet to be named
The government has yet to name the new Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), a position that has been empty since the country’s first CDS, Gen. Bipin Rawat, died in a chopper crash in December.
In December 1982, Gen Pande was commissioned into the Corps of Engineers (The Bombay Sappers). He became Vice Chief on February 1, 2021, after serving as General Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Eastern Command, since June 1, 2021. He was the 15th Commander-in-Chief of the Andaman and Nicobar Command from June 1, 2020, until May 31, 2021. (CINCAN).
Gen. Pande New Army Chief
Gen. Pande graduated from the Staff College in Camberley, United Kingdom, then went on to the Army War College at Mhow and the National Defence College (NDC) in Delhi for the Higher Command Course. He was assigned to the United Nations Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea as Chief Engineer.
During Operation Parakram in the Pallanwala area of Jammu & Kashmir, near the Line of Control, the General commanded the 117 Engineer Regiment (LoC). He commanded an Engineer Regiment along the LoC, an Engineer Brigade as part of the Strike Corps, an Infantry Brigade along the LoC, a Mountain Division in western Ladakh’s high altitudes, and a Corps deployed along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) as well as in the northeast’s counter-insurgency operations area.
Colonel Commandant of the Bombay Sappers, Gen. Pande is also the Colonel Commandant of the Bombay Sappers.