Resurrecting The IPKF Legacy

Lieutenant Colonel Atul Kochhar, MSc (Defence Studies), PGDM, was commissioned into First Jammu and Kashmir Light Infantry in June 1986. He is an alumnus of NDA and DSSC. He was part of his unit in the Indian Military Training Team (East), Bhutan, for imparting training to the Royal Bhutan Army. He has served in all major areas/theatres of operations, including Op Chequerboard, Op Pawan, Op Parakram, Op Rakshak and Op Vijay. He was posted in Jammu and Kashmir Light Infantry Regimental Centre as a Training Major, DAQMG of 123 Infantry Brigade in Op Vijay, and as an Instructor in NCC Officer Training Academy Gwalior. He fulfilled his Executive MBA from IIM Indore in 2007.

Lieutenant Colonel B R Nair was commissioned into the Regiment of Artillery (Field Wing) after graduating from the Centre for Russian Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, in September 1974. He is an alumnus of the Officer’s Training School, Madras – now the Officer’s Training Academy, Chennai. One of the last artillery officers to be commissioned into a Mountain Pack Regiment being reorganised into what later came to be known as the ‘Light regiment’; he was transferred to the Intelligence Corps, after a stint as a General Staff Officer Grade 3 in the Military Intelligence Directorate of Army Headquarters. Subsequently, he served in counter-insurgency operations in the North East (Mizoram & Agartala), in intelligence gathering operations on the Western borders, counter-intelligence operations in Central India, as a Staff Officer Grade 2 in Military Intelligence Directorate, and as a Grade 1 Intelligence Staff Officer, in a corps headquarters on the western border.