Lt Gen Bipin Rawat is next army chief

Lt Gen Bipin Rawat has been appointed as the next army chief. He is the current Vice Chief of Army Staff (VCOAS) of Indian Army. He will preside over from General Dalbir Singh Suhag from January 2017. Rawat has vast experience in high altitude warfare and counter-insurgency operations. He got commissioned into the Fifth Battalion of the Eleven Gorkha Rifles in December 1978. He had also served as a Major General Staff at HQ Eastern Command and as the officer commanding a Multinational Brigade in a Chapter VII mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUC).

With the appointment of Rawat as the next chief, the government has abandoned a three-decades-old tradition of appointing the senior-most officers as military chiefs. Rawat will be the second consecutive chief from the Gorkha Rifles. His appointment has ignored the claims of Eastern Army commander Lt Gen Praveen Bakshi (senior-most general), and Southern Army commander Lt Gen PM Hariz.