On February 1 , Lt General Manoj Pande had taken over as the vice army chief. He had replaced Lieutenant General CP Mohanty. The Centre has appointed that Lieutenant General Manoj Pande who will take the reins as the 29th Chief of the Army Staff after Gen MM Naravane’s tenure ends on April 30. The first ever officer commisioned in the corps of engineers to head the 12 lakh strong force.
The Govt. has gone by the seniority principle in announcing the next Army Chief. The countrys next Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), however is yet to be announced after the untimely death of Gen- Bipin Rawat, though Gen Naravane is considered to be the lead.
Lt- Gen Pande will have to take forward the transformation of the man power- intensive Army into a lean, mean and future – ready fighting machine, with a much better teeth to toe ratio, said by a senior officer.
Lt Gen Pande also served as the Commander-in-Chief of Andaman and Nicobar Command (CINCAN) which is India’s only tri-services command. An alumnus of the National Defence Academy, he was commissioned in the Corps of Engineers (The Bombay Sappers) in December 1982. Gen Pande is well versed with China, having 1st served as the 4 Gajraj Corps Commander in the north – east which looks after both the line of actual control as well as the insurgency operations and then as the General Officer commanding in chief of the eastern command from June 2021 to Jan 2022 before he became the Army Vice Chief.
