Lieutenant General Manoj Pande succeeds Naravane; named new army chief

NEW DELHI: Lieutenant General Manoj Pande has been appointed as the 29th Chief of Army Staff. He will succeed General M M Naravane, who is scheduled to complete his 28 month-tenure on Saturday. Manoj Pande is the first officer from the Corps of Engineers to become the army chief.

The government decided to appoint Pande as the next chief of army staff as he is the senior most lieutenant in the army. Prior to his appointment as Vice Chief of the Army Staff on February 1, General Pandey has served as the head of the Eastern Army Command, which was tasked with guarding the Line of Control (LoC) in Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh. He will turn 60 on May 6.

The General is assuming office in the backdrop of the military confrontation with China in the eastern Ladakh. He first served as the Corps Commander, who defended the Line of Control and coordinated counter-insurgency operations.

General Pande has served as the commander of an engineers’ brigade in the western theatre, an infantry brigade along the LoC in Jammu and Kashmir, a mountain division in the high altitude area of western Ladakh, command of a corps along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) and in counter insurgency operations area of Eastern Command. He has also commanded an engineer regiment during Operation Parakram in the Pallanwala sector along the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir.