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Who is Lt Gen Manoj Pande?
Lieutenant General Manoj Chandrashekhar Pande was appointed as the next chief of the Indian army on April 18, 2022. Pande will succeed General Manoj Mukund Naravane who is set to complete his tenure on April, 30. After Naravane, Pande is the senior-most officer in the army.
Pande, 59, is currently the vice chief of the army. Prior to that, he was in charge of the Eastern Command—one of the six operational commands of the Indian army, headquartered in Kolkata. Before that, he was in charge of the Andaman and Nicobar Command (ANC)—a special tri-service command that safeguards India's strategic interests in Southeast Asia.
Pande’s journey with the armed forces began when he joined the National Defence Academy (NDA) after his schooling. The NDA is a joint defence service training institute where cadets of the three services (army, navy, air force) train together before they go on to their respective service academy for more training. Pande graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree and went on to join the Indian Military Academy which trains officers for the army.
Pande was commissioned into the Bombay Sappers, a regiment in the Corps of Engineers, in December 1982. Once Pande assumes office on May 1, he will become the first engineer to hold command of the army.
Notably, during Operation Parakram in 2001—a major military standoff between India and Pakistan after a terror attack on the Indian parliament —Pande was in command of the 117 Engineer Regiment along the Line of Control (LOC) in Jammu and Kashmir. His military career spans 39 years.
Pande was born in 1962. His family hails from Nagpur, Maharashtra.