Lt. Gen. Deependra Singh Hooda (Retd.)

Commissioned into the 4th Battalion of the 4th Gorkha Rifles on December 15, 1976, Lt. Gen. Deependra Singh Hooda performed his initial service in Nagaland during the height of the Naga insurgency, and thereafter as an instructor at the Military College of Telecommunication Engineering.

He attended the prestigious Command and Staff College in Canada and was selected as the first Chief Logistics Officer for the newly raised United Nations Mission to Ethiopia and Eritrea. He played a key role in setting up the Eritrea mission in terms of camps, engineering and communications support, food supplies and health services.

During the massive earthquake in Jammu and Kashmir in 2005, he led the military’s rescue and relief efforts in the Uri sector. As a Major Gen., he was responsible for counterinsurgency operations in Manipur and South Assam.

From 2012 to 2016, he was stationed in Jammu and Kashmir, first as a Corps Commander and then as the Army Commander of the Northern Command. In this assignment, he handled numerous strategic challenges along the borders with both Pakistan and China. He was the Army Commander during the Chumar incident along the LAC in 2014, and during the launch of the surgical strikes in September 2016. He retired in November 2016 after 40 years of service in the Indian Army.

In recognition for his exemplary military service, Lt. Gen. Hooda has been awarded the Vishisht Seva Medal twice, the Ati Vishisht Seva Medal, the Uttam Yudh Seva Medal and the Param Vishisht Seva Medal.

Lt Gen Hooda is a co-founder of the Council for Strategic and Defense Research, a New Delhi based think-tank. He is on the Advisory Board of the Cyber Peace Foundation, an NGO dealing with cyber protection and training, as well as the Cyber Security Research Centre at the Punjab Engineering College, Chandigarh.

He has been a regular contributor to newspapers, on-line media portals and professional journals on national and international security affairs.