The central government, on Tuesday, 25 January, approved a proposal to appoint Lieutenant General Manoj Pande as the next Vice-Chief of Army Staff.
Lt Gen Pande is slated to succeed Lt Gen CP Mohanty, whose term is scheduled to superannuate on 31 January.
Lt Gen Manoj Pande assumed the role of the Eastern Army Commander on 1 June 2021. Prior to this appointment, he was the Commander-in-Chief of the Andaman & Nicobar Command.
Who is Lt Gen Manoj Pande?
Pande has tenanted important staff assignments, and was posted as the Chief Engineer at the United Nations Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea. He was the Director-General at the Army Headquarters, and dealt with subjects regarding discipline and welfare, in addition to ceremonial ones.
He has also commanded an Engineer Regiment along the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir, an Engineer Brigade as part of the Strike Corps, an Infantry Brigade along the LoC, a Mountain Division in the high-altitude area of western Ladakh, a Corps deployed along the Line of Actual Control (LAC), and a Counter-Insurgency Operations area in the northeast.
Meanwhile, Lt Gen Upendra Dwivedi has been appointed as the new Northern Army Commander. He is presently the Deputy Chief of Army Staff and would be succeeding Lt Gen YK Joshi in Udhampur, Jammu and Kashmir.
Further, Lieutenant General RP Kalita has been appointed as the new Eastern Army Command chief in Kolkata. He would be succeeding Lt Gen Manoj Pande who is moving to the Army Headquarters as the new Vice Chief of the Army.
The appointment of the next Chief of Defence Staff is still awaited. The post has remained vacant since the death of General Bipin Rawat in a chopper crash on 8 December.
(With inputs from ANI.)
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