Women for the Battleground

After last year’s landmark announcement to recruit women for the combat in military forces, India finally started its journey of recruiting female soldiers on 25th April 2019. On Thursday, Army began the procedure of Recruitment of women, as Jawans or soldiers for the first time, with an aim to constitute 20% of Military police cadre from their ranks. The army aims to include 800 women as military police and train them. A yearly intake of 50 personnel, who are to assist in probing criminal cases like rapes and molestations and to maintain good order as well as discipline in military formation. However, this seems to be a progress towards equality for all, as till now, armed forces only had women in the ranks of officers and wasn’t quite allowed to go for combat or to join forces like infantry, armoured corps, and artillery or serve on operation warships. Army started the registration procedure on Thursday, and is scheduled to end on June 8, 2019. Last year, the Government also mentioned, in branches like ordnance, signal, logistics, intelligence, engineering, air traffic control and air defense women officers would be allowed to opt for permanent commission, apart from the existing ones like legal and education. In Indian Armed Forces, women number about 1500 in Army, 1600 in IAF and 500 in Navy in the 65000-strong officer cadre in the over 14 Lakh armed forces.

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