Lieutenant General Manoj Pande will be India's next Chief of the Army Staff when incumbent General MM Naravane retires at the end of this month.
Lt Gen Pande will take the charge of India's 29th army chief on 1 May 2022, said the Indian Army in a tweet. He is currently the Vice Chief of Army Staff.
National security analyst Nitin Gokhale highlighted in a tweet that Lt Gen Pande is the first engineer corps officer to rise to the post of army chief. He was commissioned into the Bombay Sappers in December 1982.
Prior to his appointment as vice army chief, Lt Gen Pande was commanding the Eastern Army Command tasked with guarding the Line of Actual Control in the Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh sectors.
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Lt Gen Pande's earlier duties include commanding an engineer unit along the Line of Control during the Operation Parakram, an engineer brigade in the Western sector, an infantry brigade along the LoC, and a mountain division in high-altitude areas of western Ladakh and a corps in the Northeast.
He also commanded the Andaman and Nicobar Command, which is India's only tri-services theatre command. Lt Gen Pande also served as chief engineer in the UN mission in Africa's Ethiopia and Eritrea.
With PTI inputs
