Rare coincidence! Three friends to take charge of three armies of India!

Lucknow: This is the second time since the independence of the country that such a rare coincidence has occurred when three deep friends will be the heads of the three armies.

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Very few people know that Lieutenant General Manoj Mukund Narwane, Naval Chief Admiral Karambir Singh and Air Chief Marshal Rakesh Kumar Singh Bhadoria have been coursemates of the same batch of NDA 43 years ago. The current Army Chief General Bipin Rawat is scheduled to retire on 31 December and Lt. General Manoj Mukund Narwan will take over as Army Chief.

When KB, Chhotu and Manoj joined the National Defense Academy at the age of 17 in 1976, no one would have imagined that one day these batchmates would be the Chiefs of the three armies together.

The interesting thing is that there is another similarity among the three. The father of the three have served in the Indian Air Force. Today, after 43 years, all three friends have managed to top their respective services.

Lieutenant General Narwane will take charge of the 28th Army Chief later this month. He will have a paratrooper wing on his Olive-Green uniform.

Air Chief Marshal Bhadoria took over as the Chief of the Air Force on September 30.

Admiral Singh became the 24th Navy Chief of the country on May 31 and the helicopter pilot's wing adorns his white uniform.

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All three were part of the 56th course of NDA. After completing a 3-year course as an NDA cadet, the three reached their respective service academies, where all three were commissioned as officers in June-July 1980.

A senior officer associated with the army told that it is not a small and easy task for the NDA's coursemate to take lead in the respective armies. This is a very rare coincidence.

This is because the appointment of an army chief is taken care of by a lot of things. For this, all things like birth date, career record, merit, seniority are investigated. Along with all this, the role of destiny also cannot be denied. Therefore it should be considered a rare coincidence when three friends will be posted as the heads of the three armies.

The officer added that the service chief can serve till the age of 62 or up to 3 years (whichever is earlier) and on the other hand the Three-Star General (Lieutenant General, Air Marshal and Vice Admiral) would retire at the age of 60. It can be understood from this that how rare it is for the three batchmates to become chief in their respective service.

The first such rare coincidence was sighted in 1991 after the country's independence. In December 1991, in the passing out parade of the 81st course of the NDA, the then chief of the three armies, General S.K. F. Rodrigues, Admiral L. Ramdas and Air Chief Marshal N.C. Suri were present. This was also a rare scene as all three were NDA batchmates.

Another thing to note is that Admiral Singh and Lt Gen Narwane have been friends before joining NDA. Both of them had studied in the same school for many years before coming to NDA. Later, these two school friends also reached NDA simultaneously.

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