New Delhi: A Nepal Army band contingent will participate in the parade on the Army Day on 15 January, becoming the only foreign contingent to do so.
The Nepalese contingent will arrive in India on 10 January.
An all-women Army contingent comprising Agniveers will also take part in the parade for the first time, along with the all-girls National Cadet Corps (NCC) marching to the headquarters of the Army’s Southern Command.
The decision to feature the Nepalese contingent comes days after the Nepalese Army Chief was conferred with the honourary rank of General of the Indian Army by President Droupadi Murmu, a tradition followed for nearly 70 years under which the Indian Army chief is also conferred with an honourary rank by the Nepalese president.
In November 2024, Indian Army chief General Upendra Dwivedi was conferred with the rank of honourary general by Nepal President Ramchandra Paudel in Kathmandu.
The Army Day parade is set to take place at the Bombay Engineers Group (BEG) centre in Pune. In 2023, the parade was moved out of Delhi for the first time since 1949 and took place in Bengaluru, a part of the Southern Command. In 2024, the parade moved to Lucknow, the headquarters of the Central Command.
The Southern Command
The Southern Command was initially a part of the Bombay Command headquartered in Pune upon its formation on 1 April 1895. However, in 1908, the Indian Army replaced the four commands with two armies: The Northern Army and the Southern Army with the former stationed in Rawalpindi and the latter in Pune or Poona as it was then known.
The four commands were reintroduced in the 1920s by the then British government.
The Southern Command is the oldest field formation of the Indian Army. It comprises two Corps, with their headquarters located at Jodhpur and Bhopal. The static formations part of the command are in Maharashtra, Gujarat and Goa, with its headquarters in Mumbai; the Dakshin Bharat Area is headquartered in Chennai.
The Southern Command comprises eleven states and four Union Territories—about 41 percent of the country’s landmass. The formations, establishments, and units that come under this command are spread over 19 cantonments and 36 military stations, according to the Army’s official information.
(Edited by Insha J. Waziri)
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It is good to see the young Women Agniveer marching. But I, like the entire India, would have been happier to see these young women being recruited as permanent soldiers. Then I would have called them pride of our nation. Now they are like fading stars.