Kargil veteran's son becomes third generation officer

Dehradun: A total of 491 cadets passed out of the Indian Military Academy (IMA), Dehradun, as officers on Saturday, including 456 from India and 35 from 13 friendly countries with the passing-out parade (PoP) for the autumn course.

- Amit Bathla

Suprabal Janasewashree general Ashok Raj Sigdel, Chief of the Army Staff (COAS) of the Nepal army, reviewed the parade.

He congratulated the officer cadets on successful completion of their training at IMA and called upon them to be ready for challenges during their career.

"You will face a future environment that is invariably multi-domain, multi-theatre, and multi-sectoral. It will be marked by multi-pronged challenges in terms of rapidly changing threats, roles, structures, doctrine and emerging disruptive technologies. You will serve from the coldest glacier to the hottest deserts. And from the loneliest jungles to densest urban centres," he said while addressing the cadets.

He also laid a wreath at the war memorial of the IMA and paid tributes to the alumni of the prestigious training academy. The parade began with the marker's call sounded by five markers stationed atop the historic Chetwode hall, and marched in perfect harmony to the tunes of "Col Bogey", "Sare Jahan Se Acha" and "Kadam Kadam Badhaye Ja". The synergy and enthusiasm of the cadets during the parade was applauded by the audience of military officers, and family of the newly commissioned officers.

Two cadets from Nepal, officer cadet Binod Bhatta and officer cadet Prabin Pandey, were also commissioned during the parade.

The coveted Sword of Honour was awarded by reviewing officer to academy cadet Adjutant Jatin Kumar, and the gold medal was given to academy under officer Pratham Singh.