Brig Prabir Goswami (Retd)
Many of us who were in uniform when he was the Army Chief, and even after his retirement, had the occasion to be touched and influenced by the irrepressible Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw, one of India’s most loved and admired soldiers.
Having just taken over as the Army Chief, General Manekshaw came as the Reviewing Officer for our Passing Out Parade at the Indian Military Academy, Dehradun, on June 15, 1969. It was a huge honour that the Chief himself would take the salute as we got commissioned as Second Lieutenants.
Just two months later, he visited our armoured regiment at Ahmednagar. It was a new unit being raised with soldiers brought in from Artillery, Engineers and the Infantry, and from different castes like Marathas, Ahirs and Gujjars. This mixed bag was a first-time experiment for the Armoured Corps. Sam had just introduced name tabs for officers and we were all wearing these as we lined up for introductions.
Two Levies personnel were martyred and two others injured in a roadside bomb explosion in Mashkay tehsil of Awaran district on Monday. AFP/File
QUETTA: Two Levies personnel were martyred and two others injured in a roadside bomb explosion in Mashkay tehsil of Awaran district on Monday.
Levies Balochistan officials said that an improvised explosive device was placed at a roadside in the Bandki area and detonated by remote control when a convoy of Risaldar Major of Levies force Yahya Khan Mohammad Hasani was passing through the area.
As a result of the powerful explosion, two Levies soldiers, identified as Samiullah and Mohammad Akhtar, died and two other soldiers suffered injuries.
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Although he was widely regarded as one of the most famous British authors of all time, Rudyard Kipling’s birthplace was across the world from the British Isle in what was then known as British India. Kipling drew upon his upbringing in Bombay as inspiration for many of his most famous works including The Jungle Book (1894) and Kim
(1901). The first English-speaker to win the Nobel Prize in Literature harkened back to his childhood in his novel The Eyes of Asia,
about a Sikh Man’s experience fighting in World War I for the British.
Published on June 2, 1917
From Bishen Singh Saktawut, Subedar Major, 215th Indurgurh Todd’s Rajputs, now at Lyndhurst, Hampshire, England, to Madhu Singh, Sawant, Risaldar Major retired 146th Dublana Horse, on his fief which he holds under the Thakore Sahib of Pech at Bukani by the River, near Chiturkaira, Kotah, Rajaputana: