“We are transforming and restructuring ourselves to meet the challenges of the future”

“Upon the Western Front, Pakistan continues to embrace terror and terrorism as an instrument of state policy”, said the Chief of the Army Staff General M.M. Naravane, in his opening remarks during Annual Army Day Press Conference 2021.

- Army Staff General M.M. Naravane

THE LAST YEAR WAS one full of challenges. We keep saying that we are prepared to meet all challenges. But last year we had to walk the talk and actually rise up to the occasion and show that we are indeed prepared to meet all these challenges and I’m happy to say that we did so and came out on top and the fact that they were multifarious. But main among them was, of course, COVID and the situation on the Northern borders.

As far as the COVID pandemic is concerned, as early as the middle of February, based on whatever inputs we were getting, we had been able to make quite a pragmatic assessment of the situation and then instituted necessary force protection measures under “Op Namaste”. Detailed instructions were passed from the Army Headquarters, as well as the through medical channel on what all measures need to the instituted. Along with that, we also gave a free hand to our local commanders to institute all measures that they deemed fit in their respective areas and garrison and I’m very happy to say that as a result of all this, we were able to maintain our operational preparedness and as events unfolded during the course of the year, we needed our units and formations to be deployed at short notice. These measures instituted, right from February onwards paid handsome dividends.