Lt Gen Manoj Pande Appointed Army Chief; First Engineer To Hold Top Military Post

New Delhi: Lieutenant General Manoj Pande has been appointed as the next chief of the Indian Army. He is currently serving as the army’s vice chief.

“Government has decided to appoint Lt Gen Manoj Pande as the next chief of army staff,” the defence ministry announced on Monday.

He will be the first officer from the Corps of Engineers to hold the top military post succeeding General Manoj Mukund Naravane who is due to retire by April end.

An alumnus of the National Defence Academy, Pande was commissioned into the Corps of Engineers in December 1982 and he commanded an engineer regiment during Operation Parakram in the Pallanwala sector along the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir.

In his 39-year military career, Lt General Pande has commanded an engineer brigade in the western theatre, an infantry brigade along LoC, a mountain division in the Ladakh sector and a corps in the northeast. He was the commander-in-chief of the Andaman and Nicobar Command before he took charge of the Eastern Command.