425 cadets pass out from IMA
Gentleman cadet Loveneet Singh from Punjab was awarded the bronze medal for standing third in order of merit
DEHRADUN: The Indian Military Academy held a passing-out parade of 425 gentleman cadets (GCS), 341 from India and 84 from nine friendly foreign countries, in Dehradun on Saturday.
Amid the Covid-19 pandemic, the ceremony was held in adherence to precautions; cadets wore masks and maintained social distancing during the parade. The reviewing officer or chief guest of the event was Lt Gen RP Singh, General Officer Commanding in Chief of Indian Army’s Western Command.
To ensure the health safety of cadets and academy’s staffers, parents of the cadets were not allowed to attend the event to witness their wards commissioning as officers in the Indian Army. In the previous POP held in December, only two family members of the GCS were allowed to attend the event.
After receiving the ceremonial salute from the passing-out GCS in the parade, Lt Gen Singh congratulated them on “successful completion of their training in IMA.” Addressing the GCS, he said, “These are extremely challenging times as the world battles with the Covid-19 pandemic and witnesses varied conflicts around the world.”
“You are stepping into an era marked by disrupting technologies, blurring definition of threats, expanding domains of conflict and an interplay of multi-polar complexities. The external and internal challenges that our nation faces from adversarial forces are only set to increase as we rise to take our destined place in the new global order. As warrior leaders of future, your awareness, proficiency and leadership has to therefore remain extremely dynamic and evolve constantly,” said Lt Gen Singh. As the parents were not allowed to attend the event due to health safety reasons, the pipping of stars on the shoulders of the passing-out GCS was done by their instructors and IMA staffers in adherence to Covid precautions. During the event, the coveted Sword of Honour was awarded to GC Mukesh Kumar while the gold medal for the GC standing first in order of merit was awarded to Deepak Singh. The silver and bronze medals were awarded to GC Mukesh Kumar and Punjab’s Loveneet Singh. The silver medal for the GC standing first in order of merit from technical graduate course was awarded to Daksh Kumar while the silver medal for the GC standing first in order of merit from the foreign GCS was given to Kinley Norbu from Bhutan. Among the 341 Indian GCS who were commissioned as Indian army officers, maximum were from Uttar Pradesh (66), followed by Haryana (38) and Uttarakhand (37), Punjab (32) and Bihar (29).