Meet The First Indian Women Army Officer To Represent The Country In An International Military Exercise

Admin 04-Mar-2016 14:34:25 Inothernews

Meet The First Indian Women Army Officer To Represent The Country In An International Military Exercise


Lt Col Sophia Qureshi of the Corps of Signals has created history. She achieved the rare distinction of becoming the first woman officer to lead a training contingent of the Indian Army at Force 18, the ASEAN Plus multinational field training exercise which began in Pune on Wednesday. Additionally, Qureshi was also the only woman contingent commander among all participating nations. With the debate of giving women a prominent role in the Indian armed forces, this came as a master move. Querish’s prime role in the ongoing exercise is to provide training inputs for peacekeeping operations, but the assignment has a lot to do with her family legacy. Speaking of her experience, she said, ‘It is certainly a moment to feel proud about. I belong to a warrior family. My grandfather and other family members were warriors.’



On being a part of peacemaking operations.

She further added, ‘I have prior experience of being part of the United Nations' (UN) peacekeeping missions and I have been associated with peacekeeping operations for the last five to six years.’ Qureshi, who was commissioned in the Indian Army in 1990, was part of the Indian Peacekeeping Mission in the African nation of Congo in 2006. According to her, ‘Effective monitoring of ceasefire is the prime role during peacekeeping operations for any contingent or military observers.’

On her role at the field training exercise.

Quereshi said, ‘Over the last one week, we have held sessions with trainers from the participating nations and now we will be working together on a common platform for the common cause of peacekeeping and humanitarian mine action."

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Advice to young Indian women who are looking for a challenging career.

Qureshi has a simple message: ‘If possible, join the Indian Army.’

Adding to the ‘Indian contingent being led by a woman officer’ debate, Southern Army Commander Lt Gen Bipin Rawat said, ‘We do not differentiate between ladies and men. In the Army, we work with the objective and purpose of equal opportunity and equal responsibility. We treat ladies as equals in the force and when we do so, they have to share equal responsibility.’

Well, we are impressed because this year looks great for women Army officers.

Since the last few years, all-women contingents have been an integral part of India's Republic Day Parade. Interestingly, this was the first time when the Daredevil contingent of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) performed motorcycle stunts, for the first time, on 2016 R-Day Parade. In similar news, recently, On February 23rd, President Pranab Mukherjee announced in the parliament that the government would induct women in all military combat roles in the future.

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