Lt Gen Manoj Pande appointed new Army chief

NEW DELHI: Lieutenant General Manoj Pande has been named as the next chief of the Indian Army.
He will replace incumbent COAS (Chief of the Army Staff) General MM Naravane, who is due to retire by the end of this month.
Lt Gen Pande will be the first-ever officer commissioned into the Corps of Engineers to become the Army chief.
He is the senior most in the force after General Naravane, and will therefore take over the reins after Gen Naravane’s retirement.
Gen Naravane is seen as the frontrunner for the Chief of Defence Staff’s (CDS) post, that has been vacant since the death of India’s first CDS Gen Bipin Rawat in an air crash last December.