A total of 150 veterans who took part in the 1971 Indo-Pak war were honoured here on Wednesday in the presence of the victory flame lit by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Delhi on December 16 as part of launching the golden jubilee celebrations.
Commodore Ashok Rai, Commanding Officer of INS Agrani, Air Commodore Rajnish Verma Commandant of Air Force Administrative College (AFAC) and Colonel Piyush S. Katal, Station Commander, Station Headquarters, Coimbatore, received the victory flame which reached PSG Institute of Medical Science and Research (PSG IMSR) after two days of tour to the Madras Regimental Centre, Wellington.
Lauding the sacrifices made by the armed forces personnel in protecting the sovereignty and integrity of the country, Commodore Rai pointed out that when a nation goes to war, it is not just the armed forces that goes to war. “It is the whole nation that goes to war. Each and every citizen is directly or indirectly involved in the war,” said Commodore Rai.
“For a nation to de facto be considered a great nation, it needs to have more than just material strength. It needs to develop those intangibles such as national character. This can happen only with true education, ethics and value systems,” he added.
Veterans who took part in the war namely Air Vice Marshal (AVM) Natarajan and Brigadier Mahadevan shared their experiences while Corporation Commissioner P. Kumaravel Pandian spoke about the significance of the epic war.
Commodore Rai, Air Commodore Verma and Colonel Katal honoured 150 war veterans from Coimbatore, the Nilgiris, Erode, Tirupur and parts of Kerala.
Colonel Rajiv Menon, Administrative Commandant, Station Headquarters, Coimbatore; Colonel L. Chandrasekharan Naidu, Group Commander, NCC Group Coimbatore; Lieutenant Colonel Girish Parthan, Commanding Officer of 2 Tamil Nadu Artillery Battery NCC and coordinating officer of golden jubilee celebrations in Coimbatore; war veteran AVM Vijayakumar; R.S. Maruti, director, Rotary G 40; T.M. Subbarao, vice-principal of PSGIMSR; defence personnel; NCC officers and family members of war veterans were present.
The event also featured a symphony orchestra by the Air Force and cultural programmes by NCC cadets. Rotary G 40 gave gifts to all the war veterans.
