Ranjit Nadkarni

The author is a retired Infantry officer from the Indian Army and is now a permanent resident of Melbourne. Commissioned in December 1965, he is an alumnus of the Indian National Defence Academy, Defence Services Staff College and the College of Defence Management. During his long career, he has the distinction of having commanded two infantry battalions, an armored brigade, an infantry division and a special counter-insurgency force in the Kashmir Valley. He has been a member of the Directing Staff/Head of Faculty at the College of Combat, the School of Artillery, the Defence Services Staff College and the College of Defence Management—a decade of teaching. He has seen combat at close quarters as a company commander during the 1971 India–Pakistan Conflict, as Colonel General Staff of a division in counterinsurgency operations in North East India, and as General Officer Commanding of a special counterinsurgency force at the height of the terrorist movement in Kashmir.