President confers gallantry and distinguished service awards

New Delhi, Mar 19 (ANI): President Pratibha Patil on Thursday conferred six Kirti Chakras and 17 Shaurya Chakras to serving armed forces personnel for displaying conspicuous gallantry, indomitable courage and extreme devotion to duty at a solemn ceremony at Rashtrapati Bhawan here.

The President also conferred nine Param Vishisht Seva Medals, one Bar to Ati Vishisht Seva Medal, and 15 Ati Vishisht Seva Medals to senior officers of the Armed Forces for distinguished service of an exceptional order.

President conferred the nation's second highest gallantry award Kirti Chakra to Lieutenant Colonel Saurabh Singh Shekhawat, Major Sushil Kumar Singh, Major Rajinder Kumar Sharma, Havaldar Rale Santosh Tanaji and posthumously to Captain Sunil Kumar Choudhary and Brigadier Ravi Datt Mehta.

Seventeen Personnel received Shaurya Chakra, in which Subedar Dhian Singh Havaldar Aziz Mohd. And Yadav Arbeshankar Rajdhari got the awards posthumously.

Other brave personnel to get the Shaurya Chakra are Major Rajesh Singh, Major Sunder Bisht, Major Chirag Singh Barak, Major Raman Yadav, Major Aditya Kumar Devrani, Major Vijayant Chauhan, Captain Amit Bhardwaj, Captain Kuldeep Raj, Captain Rahul Singh, Naib Subedar Ramesh Chander, Havaldar Tribhuwan Singh, Naik Sukhvir, Sep Sanny Tomar and Rifleman Sagongdymei Bishong Thangal.

The President also decorated Param Vishisht Seva Medal to nine Army officers to recognize distinguished service of the most exceptional order.

The officers, who got the Param Vishisht Seva Medal are Lt. General Isac John Koshy, Lt. General Prabodh Chandra Bhardwaj, Lt. General Amar Nath Aul, Lt. General Digambar Singh Bartwal, Lt. General Avadhesh Prakash, Lt. General Jayakrishnan Jayaram, Lt. General (Retd) Rajender Singh, Lt. General (Retd) Baldev Singh Pawar and Lt Gen (Retd) Rama Ranjan Goswami.

Bar to Ati Vishisht Seva medal was given to Lt. General Baljit Singh Jaswal.

Ati Vishisht Seva Medal was given to 15 Army personnel including Retd. Lt. General Yatindra Singh Panwar and Retd. Maj General Sankarapilla Sarachandran Nair.

The other officers who received the Ati Vishisht Seva Medal were Lt. General Anil Kumar Lamba, Lt. General Raj Kumar Karwal, Lt. General Partha Mohapatra, Lt. General Ram Pratap, Lt. General (Retd) Yatindra Singh Panwar, Major General Praveen Chandra Kharbanda, Major General Jagbir Singh Kundu, Major General Jatinder Singh, Major General Palvinder Singh Bhalla, Major General Rajiv Kumar Kalra, Major General Ashok Kumar Choudhary, Major General Vinod Kumar Tiwari, Major General Subrahmanyam Sunder, Major General Charanjit Singh and Major General (Retd) Sankarapilla Sarachandran Nair. (ANI)