Lieutenant General Upendra Dwivedi on Monday assumed charge as Vice Chief of the Army Staff. Prior to this appointment, he was the General Officer Commanding-in-Chief (GOC-in-C), Northern Command based at Udhampur from 2022 to 2024. He will be the senior-most officer in the Army when Army Chief Lt. Gen. Manoj Pande retires from service in May and is in line for the top post based on seniority.
“On assumption of appointment, Lt. Gen. Dwivedi laid a wreath at the National War Memorial and was accorded Guard of Honour at the South Block Lawns,” the Army said in a statement.
An alumnus of Sainik School, Rewa in Madhya Pradesh, Lt. Gen. Dwivedi was commissioned into 18 Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) Rifles in 1984, a unit he later commanded. “The General officer has had a unique distinction of balanced exposure of both Northern and Western Theatres,” the Army said.
On his tenure as Northern Army Commander, the Army said Lt. Gen. Dwivedi provided “strategic guidance and operational oversight” for planning and execution of sustained operations along the northern and western borders, besides orchestrating the dynamic counter-terrorism operations in J&K. “During this period, the General officer was actively engaged in the ongoing negotiations with China in resolving the vexed border issue,” it stated.
He had two overseas tenures which include Somalia, as part of Headquarters United Nations Operation in Somalia (UNOSOM) II and Seychelles as Military Advisor to the Government of Seychelles.
Lt. Gen. Dwivedi was conferred ‘Distinguished Fellow’ in the National Defence College equivalent course at the U.S. Army War College, Carlisle, U.S.A. He has an M. Phil in Defence & Management Studies, in addition to two Master’s Degrees in Strategic Studies and Military Science. He took over as the Vice Chief from Lt. Gen. M. V. Suchindra Kumar, who has now been appointed as the GOC-in-C Northern Command.
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