It is agreed that the military character of the Beating Retreat ceremony should not be compromised. However, a fusion of conventional military movements and traditional Indian instruments will only add to the stature of the ceremony and inculcate a sense of national ascendancy. To read full article, please subscribe.

General Bipin Rawat is India’s first Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), taking over immediately after his term is over as the Chief of Army Staff on 31 December 2019. Author: Team DSA To read full article, please subscribe.

eneral Naravane will be the third Chief of Army Staff from the famous Sikh Light Infantry, where he was commissioned in June 1980 in the 7th Battalion.

The coming decade promises to be a watershed decade for the defence services when the policy changes put in place ought to start fructifying and showing results. One would look forward to greater indigenisation and a technological leap in defence hardware enabling export of defence equipment. It will also be a very crucial and challenging decade as the armed forces would need to narrow the technological and capability gap with its northern neighbour. The armed forces would also need to review their doctrines and strategy to prepare themselves for warfare of the future with focus on space and cyber / information warfare domains.