Lt General Manoj Pande named next Indian army chief

NEW DELHI: Lieutenant General Manoj Pande will succeed General M.M. Naravane as the army chief at the end of this month, government sources confirmed.

The elevation of Lt Gen Pande was expected after he was posted as the Vice Chief of the Army Staff in January this year. Before taking charge as the Vice Chief of the Army Staff, he was heading the Eastern Army Command tasked with guarding the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in the Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh sectors, reported foreign media.

General Naravane’s tenure will come to an end on April 30. He is expected to be appointed as the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), as The Wire has reported. The post of CDS has been vacant since General Bipin Rawat’s death in a helicopter crash on December 8, 2021. Pande was commissioned into the Bombay Sappers in Dec 1982.