The personal staff officers for service chiefs of all defence forces, the Army, the Navy and the Air Force, will be appointed from their sister services from January 1, 2025.
Indian Armed Forces Chiefs to Get aides from Sister Services
The personal staff officers for service chiefs of all defence forces, the Army, the Navy and the Air Force, will be appointed from their sister services from January 1, 2025, marking a significant move towards achieving uniformity in the forces. This will be a major move towards the ‘theaterisation‘ of the defence forces, a process which began with the appointment of the first Chief of Defence Staff, General Bipin Rawat, in 2020.
All service chiefs used to get their personal staff officers, known as Aide-de-Camp (ADCs), from not only their own services, but also from a unit with which they felt connected. This will be the first time that ADCs will be appointed for service chiefs from other services.
Although ‘theaterisation’ has been implemented in the US, China and Russia, no democratic country has succeeded in adopting jointness in the forces after building willing consensus amongst the three main services. Around 200 subjects have been identified which are required to be tackled in the run-up to adopting ‘theaterisation’ in the country.
A special joint division has also been created at the Defence Services Staff College to foster a collaborative and inter-service approach to jointness and integration in warfare and focus on inter-service understanding and cooperation.
MoD Declares 2025 as ‘Year of Reforms’
Raksha Mantri Shri Rajnath Singh chaired a meeting with all the Secretaries of the MoD on the eve of the New Year to review the progress on various schemes, projects, reforms and the way ahead. In order to give impetus to the ongoing and future reforms, it was unanimously decided to observe 2025 as the ‘Year of Reforms’ in the MoD. This would aim at transforming the Armed Forces into a technologically-advanced combat-ready force capable of multi-domain integrated operations.
