DEHRADUN: Chief of Army Staff (CoAS) Gen Manoj Pande asked IMA graduates to keep upgrading their skills amid challenges of rapidly changing dynamics of combat. He was attending the spring term Passing out Parade (PoP) event at the Indian Military Academy (IMA) on Saturday as its reviewing officer(chief guest).
The dynamics of combat are rapidly changing with fast paced development of technology and the battle space has become more complex, the army chief said. In such a scenario, technical prowess, mental agility, critical thinking, and quick response will be the key to success. He adviced the newly commissioned officers to continuously enhance their competency.
"Your journey does not end with your commissioning into the army. On the contrary, it is just the beginning of a life of commitment towards self-improvement," the CoAS said. The profession of "soldiering" is the noblest of all professions as it gives one an opportunity to don the uniform and serve one's motherland with "selfless devotion," the General said.
Sword of Honour, medals-As many as 374 cadets, including 42 from seven friendly countries, graduated as army officers with their family members in attendance. They were commissioned into their respective armies. Army under officer(UO) Mihir Banerjee bagged the coveted Sword of Honour and the silver medal while senior UO Abhimanyu Singh got the gold medal.
Representation-Of this 331 graduating from India, 63 cadets are from Uttar Pradesh, followed by Bihar and Haryana with 33 and 32. Maharashtra and Uttarakhand follows the list with 26 and 25 respectively. The number of cadets passing out from South is meagure with 11 from Karnataka, eight from Tamil Nadu, five from Kerala, three from Telangana and one from Andhra Pradesh.
The other states represented in the list of cadets include Punjab, (23), Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh - (19 each), Himachal Pradesh (17), Delhi (12), Jharkand (8), Arunachal (8), J&K (6), Chhattisgarh (5), West Bengal (3), Odisha and Gujarat - (2 each), and Chandigarh, Puducherry, Assam, Manipur, and Tirpura - (1 each).
On Friday, the cadets attended the graduation ceremony organised by the IAM at the Army Cadet College (ACC) in its campus. The IMA boasts of having sent as many as 64,489 cadets to join the army since its inception in 1932.
What is IMA?According to the Indian Army, IMA encourages a Gentlemen Cadet to reflect on the greatness of India’s diversity, her secular foundation and to honour the traditions and customs of the Army. The habitat helps him to become a rounded personality, it said. From grueling route-marches to photography, painting, seminars, term-papers, tours and sports, the training is an action filled scenario nurturing their mental and physical potential, it stated.
The pace of training at the Academy is fast and intense. It tests one’s mettle and capabilities. It would be, in psychological terms, a foretaste of what the trainees would face in the battlefield where there is no room or no scope of explanation and rationalization for failures, the Army said.
