Deepak Kapoor

23rd Chief of Army Staff of the Indian Army

The 26 November terrorist attacks in Mumbai that left 164 people dead and more than 300 wounded took place during General Deepak Kapoor’s African goodwill tour, but he did not rush home.

Gen. Kapoor has just completed his tour of South Africa and Botswana (24-28 November). In South Africa, he met the Chief of the South Africa National Defence Forces, Gen. Godfrey Ngwenya, and inspected SANDF facilities. While in Botswana, he called on Lieutenant Gen.Tebogo H. C. Masire, the Commander of the Botswana Defence Forces, and met Defence Minister Dikgakgamatso Seretse and President Lt. Gen. Seretse Khama Ian Khama. India and Botswana established defence links in 1978; since then the Indian Army Training Team has been working on a training programme with the BDF.

Kapoor joined the army in 1967 when he was 19. He saw battle in the 1971 India-Pakistan War, then trained for command at the Defence Services Staff College in Wellington and the National Defence College in New Delhi.

In 1994-95, he was Chief Operations Officer for the United Nations Operation in Somalia-Phase 2 (UNOSOM II), an unsuccessful mission to secure humanitarian operations. After UNOSOM II’s withdrawal, Kapoor returned to India. He commanded a division in Operation Pakaram in a ten-month standoff along the India-Pakistan border. He then served as commander of the Northern Army, and  was promoted to Vice-Chief of Staff. He assumed his new post in September 2007.

India’s strong economic growth means that in terms of salary the military cannot match the business sector in the competition for young talent. So Kapoor’s recent suggestion that conscription would be a useful measure to counter dwindling army recruitment caused a national panic. Minister of State for Defence Mallipudi Raju Pallam Mangapati quickly denied any plans for a draft.