Skip to main content

Lt. Gen. Bipin Rawat is next Army Chief (thehindu)


Two senior-most officers superseded in surprise decision


In a surprise move, the government on Saturday announced that Lt. Gen. Bipin Rawat will be the next Chief of Army Staff.

Against tradition

The appointment goes against the long-held tradition of appointing the senior-most eligible officer to the post.



By this criterion, Lt. Gen. Praveen Bakshi, General Officer Commanding-in-Chief Eastern Command, should have been appointed.

Air Chief

Air Marshal B.S. Dhanoa, presently the Vice-Chief of the Indian Air Force (IAF), has been appointed the next Air Chief.

“The next Army Chief will be Lt. Gen. Bipin Rawat with effect from the afternoon of December 31,” a Defence Ministry spokesperson said.

Army Chief General Dalbir Singh and Air Force head Air Chief Marshal Arup Raha will both retire on December 31.

1983 precedent

Lt. Gen. Bakshi is widely respected as a highly competent and professional officer. The last time the senior-most eligible officer was not appointed was in 1983 when Prime Minister Indira Gandhi choose to appoint Lt. Gen. A.S. Vaidya as the Chief, contrary to expectations that Lt. Gen. S.K. Sinha would take over. Lt. Gen. Sinha, then Vice-Chief, chose to resign in June 1983 though he was due to retire in early 1984.

With the appointment of Lt. Gen. Rawat, two senior-most officers have been superseded, which is unprecedented in the military. Lt. Gen. P.M. Hariz, Southern Army Commander, is second in seniority after Lt. Gen. Bakshi.

With the unprecedented delay in the announcements of appointments to the top posts, military circles have been rife with speculation of a change in the line of succession.

It is customary to announce the names two to three months in advance.

Lt. Gen. Rawat is currently the Vice-Chief of the Army. He was commissioned in the Fifth Battalion of the Eleven Gorkha Rifles in December 1978.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

NGT terminates chairmen of pollution control boards in 10 states (downtoearth,)

Cracking the whip on 10 State Pollution Control Boards (SPCBs) for ad-hoc appointments, the National Green Tribunal has ordered the termination of Chairpersons of these regulatory authorities. The concerned states are Himachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Tamil Nadu, Uttarakhand, Kerala, Rajasthan, Telangana, Haryana, Maharashtra and Manipur. The order was given last week by the principal bench of the NGT, chaired by Justice Swatanter Kumar. The recent order of June 8, 2017, comes as a follow-up to an NGT judgment given in August 2016. In that judgment, the NGT had issued directions on appointments of Chairmen and Member Secretaries of the SPCBs, emphasising on crucial roles they have in pollution control and abatement. It then specified required qualifications as well as tenure of the authorities. States were required to act on the orders within three months and frame Rules for appointment [See Box: Highlights of the NGT judgment of 2016 on criteria for SPCB chairperson appointment]. Having
Post a Comment
Click Here To Read more »

High dose of Vitamin C and B3 can kill colon cancer cells: study (downtoearth)

In a first, a team of researchers has found that high doses of Vitamin C and niacin or Vitamin B3 can kill cancer stem cells. A study published in Cell Biology International showed the opposing effects of low and high dose of vitamin C and vitamin B3 on colon cancer stem cells. Led by Bipasha Bose and Sudheer Shenoy, the team found that while low doses (5-25 micromolar) of Vitamin C and B3 proliferate colon cancer stem cells, high doses (100 to 1,000 micromolar) killed cancer stem cells. Such high doses of vitamins can only be achieved through intravenous injections in colon cancer patients. The third leading cause of cancer deaths worldwide, colon cancer can be prevented by an intake of dietary fibre and lifestyle changes. While the next step of the researchers is to delineate the mechanisms involved in such opposing effects, they also hope to establish a therapeutic dose of Vitamin C and B3 for colon cancer stem cell therapy. “If the therapeutic dose gets validated under in vivo
1 comment
Click Here To Read more »

SC asks Centre to strike a balance on Rohingya issue (.hindu)

Supreme Court orally indicates that the government should not deport Rohingya “now” as the Centre prevails over it to not record any such views in its formal order, citing “international ramifications”. The Supreme Court on Friday came close to ordering the government not to deport the Rohingya. It finally settled on merely observing that a balance should be struck between humanitarian concern for the community and the country's national security and economic interests. The court was hearing a bunch of petitions, one filed by persons within the Rohingya community, against a proposed move to deport over 40,000 Rohingya refugees. A three-judge Bench, led by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra, began by orally indicating that the government should not deport Rohingya “now”, but the government prevailed on the court to not pass any formal order, citing “international ramifications”. With this, the status quo continues even though the court gave the community liberty to approach i
1 comment
Click Here To Read more »