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New Delhi. Lt Gen Bikram Singh will be the next Indian Army Chief, it was announced Mar 3.
"Lt Gen Bikram Singh has been designated as the next Chief of Army Staff in the rank of General, with effect from the afternoon of May 31, 2012," an official statement said.
The current incumbent, Gen V K Singh, is due to retire that day.
Lt Gen Bikram Singh, who heads the Army's Eastern Command, will be the senior-most three-star officer then.
Barring one exception, the Indian Government has always appointed the senior-most among the Lieutenant General as the Chief of the Army Staff, and this appointment would have come to him in the normal, due course.
Asked for his reaction, he said in a brief statement that he was "honoured and grateful to the government for having reposed confidence in me and having appointed me as the next Chief of the Army Staff."
Lt Gen Bikram Singh, 59, will have a tenure of more than two years as the retirement age for a Chief of Staff of the Indian Army, Navy, or Air Force is 62, but with a minimum of two years.
The General was commissioned into the Sikh Light Infantry Regiment on 31 March, 1972 after finishing his course in the National Defence Academy and the Indian Military Academy. He is the first officer to reach the top after joining the Army post-1971 Bangladesh War.
But he was in the Army
More...
New Delhi. Lt Gen Bikram Singh will be the next Indian Army Chief, it was announced Mar 3.
"Lt Gen Bikram Singh has been designated as the next Chief of Army Staff in the rank of General, with effect from the afternoon of May 31, 2012," an official statement said.
The current incumbent, Gen V K Singh, is due to retire that day.
Lt Gen Bikram Singh, who heads the Army's Eastern Command, will be the senior-most three-star officer then.
Barring one exception, the Indian Government has always appointed the senior-most among the Lieutenant General as the Chief of the Army Staff, and this appointment would have come to him in the normal, due course.
Asked for his reaction, he said in a brief statement that he was "honoured and grateful to the government for having reposed confidence in me and having appointed me as the next Chief of the Army Staff."
Lt Gen Bikram Singh, 59, will have a tenure of more than two years as the retirement age for a Chief of Staff of the Indian Army, Navy, or Air Force is 62, but with a minimum of two years.
The General was commissioned into the Sikh Light Infantry Regiment on 31 March, 1972 after finishing his course in the National Defence Academy and the Indian Military Academy. He is the first officer to reach the top after joining the Army post-1971 Bangladesh War.
But he was in the Army
More...