Lieutenant General Manoj Pande has been appointed as the next chief of the Indian Army on Monday, April 18. General Manoj Pande is the 29th Army Chief and the first-ever officer from the Corps of Engineers to become the Chief of Army Staff succeeding General Manoj Mukund Naravane who is scheduled to complete his 28-month tenure on April 30.
Indian Army on Monday informed that Lt Gen Manoj Pande will assume the appointment of COAS on 01 May 2022.”Government has decided to appoint Lieutenant General Manoj Pande as the next chief of army staff,” said Defence officials.
Lt Gen Manoj Pande is currently the 43rd Vice-Chief of the Army. He had taken over the post after commanding the eastern command which looks after all northeastern states sharing borders with China, Myanmar, and Bangladesh.
An alumnus of the National Defence Academy, Pande was commissioned into the Corps of Engineers in December 1982.
Lieutenant General Pande commanded an engineer regiment during Operation Parakram in the Pallanwala sector along the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir. Operation Parakram, the large-scale mobilisation of troops and weapons to the western border, followed the December 2001 terror attack on Parliament that brought India and Pakistan to the brink of war.
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.
