Just a day before Women’s Day, India gets its first female Air Force officer to command a frontline combat unit.
According to senior IAF officials, this is a very rare instance where the air force of a country has given the command of a frontline combat unit to a woman officer.
Group Captain Shaliza Dhami has been selected to take over command of a missile squadron in the Western sector, said the Indian Air Force.
Group Captain Dhami was commissioned in 2003 as a helicopter pilot and has over 2,800 hours of flying experience. A qualified flying instructor, she has served as flight commander of a helicopter unit in the Western sector.
Having been commended by the Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief on two occasions, the officer is presently posted in the operations branch of a frontline command headquarters.
That is not the only milestone. Group Captain Dhami was the first lady officer to be appointed flight commander of an operations unit.
The Indian Army earlier enhanced the role of women officers.
Recently, the Army selected 108 women officers who were under consideration to be posted on various command assignments as colonel. The first set of such postings was issued at the end of January 2023.
The Army has said that a total of 60 affected women officers have been called as observers for the Selection Board, to ensure fair conduct and clarify their apprehensions, if any.
A total of 244 women officers are being considered for promotion against 108 vacancies, from the 1992 batch to the 2006 batch in various arms and services: Engineers, Signals, Army Air Defence, Intelligence Corps, Army Service Corps, Army Ordnance Corps, and Electrical and Mechanical Engineers.
“Women combat aviators have joined their counterparts in various aviation units. Women officers as part of the Engineers, Army Air Defence and Signals corps are already making a mark in the forward areas of deployment. Women will soon be inducted into the Corps of Artillery. Recently, a woman officer has been deployed to a post in the Siachen Glacier,” an Army official said.
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