Four hundred and twenty-three new officers joined the army after graduating from the Indian Military Academy (IMA) in Dehradun on Saturday. Marching to tunes of `Col Bogey’ and `Sare Jahan Se Achha’ with pride and élan, the parade of the young officers left the audience spellbound. 

Besides this, 67 foreign cadets from ten friendly countries also passed out of the academy to bid adieu to India and proceed to their home land. The Gentlemen Cadets showed tremendous enthusiasm, vigor and zeal to put up an excellent parade before the reviewing officer and Chief of the Army Staff General Bipin Rawat. 

A total of 490 gentlemen cadets of 140 regular course, 123 technical graduate course and 25 university entry scheme course graduated from the academy on Saturday. 

Addressing the young officers, Chief of the Army Staff General Bipin Rawat said, “I compliment all cadets for the excellent parade, immaculate turnout as well as the crisp and energetic drill movements indicating the high standards of training and discipline imbibed by the young officer cadets.” He further went on to say that the IMA is a world class institution with a great reputation. 

Gentlemen Cadets were presented individual awards for their performance. sword of honour and gold medal-for the gentleman cadet for standing first in the overall order of merit-was presented to Avinash Chhetry. Vikas Sangwan received silver medal for standing second and Rohit Joshi bagged the bronze medal in overall merit list. While the Chief of Army Staff Banner was awarded to Singarh Company. 

The passing-out-parade was witnessed by military and civil dignitaries and the family members, relatives and friends of the newly commissioned officers. Uttar Pradesh with 74 officers topped the list of producing maximum number of officers among all other states in this batch. Haryana with 49, Uttarakhand with 40 and Rajasthan with 30- finished second, third and fourth respectively in the all India tally of states.

Photo: Chief of the Army Staff General Bipin Rawat felicitating gentlemen cadets with individual awards at Indian Military Academy in Dehradun on Saturday.