Digital Desk: Lieutenant
General Baggavalli Somashekar Raju will take over as the next army vice chief
on May 1, succeeding Lieutenant General Manoj Pande, who will take over as
India's 29th army chief on Saturday after General Manoj Mukund Naravane
finishes his term, officials familiar with the development said on Friday.
General Raju, a licenced helicopter pilot, is the army's
current director general of military operations (DGMO), and in that role, he
has been carefully monitoring the two-year border stalemate with China in the
strategic Ladakh area. Lieutenant General Manoj Katiyar will take over as the
army's next DGMO in lieu of Raju.
Raju was commissioned in the Jat Regiment on December 15,
1984, after graduating from Sainik School Bijapur and the National Defence
Academy.
Gen Raju led his battalion during Op Parakram in the
western theatre and in Jammu and Kashmir, the Uri brigade along the Line of
Control, a counter-insurgency force, and the Srinagar-based HQs 15 Corps
throughout his 38-year military career. He has also served as the commandant of
the Indian Military Training Team in Bhutan, according to a statement issued by
the army on his appointment.
"He has held several significant regimental, staff,
and instructional roles in army headquarters and field units," the
statement stated.
He is a certified helicopter pilot who flew in Somalia as
part of a United Nations peacekeeping mission.
Raju has completed major career courses in India and the
Royal College of Defence Studies in the United Kingdom. He also has a Master of
Science in counter-terrorism from the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey,
California.
Meanwhile, General Pande will become the army's first officer from the Corps of Engineers, better known as sappers. Officers from the sappers have served as army commanders and vice chiefs, but have never held the rank of army chief.
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