New Delhi: For the first time in its history, the armed forces will also have all-women marching contingents during Republic Day parade this year on Rajpath. These will be in addition to the regular contingents. This year's R-Day parade will be attended by US President Barack Obama as the chief guest.
According to media reports, the initiative comes after PM Narendra Modi expressed his desire for having “women empowerment” and `Naari Shakti' as the main theme for the parade.
It was not an easy task as finding out 148 women - one contingent commander, three platoon commanders and 144 in the marching block – was a bit challenging for Army, Navy and IAF who primarily, have a male-dominating workforce of 13 lakh.
Another problem that the armed forces faced was that unlike paramilitary and police forces, they induct women only as officers and the number of female officers today is only 3000 out of a total of 59,400 officers. This includes around 1300 women officers of Army, 1350 of IAF and 350 of Navy.
The armed forces have reportedly pulled out women officers, with proper turnout, drill standards and fit enough for the 10-km march from different stations across the country for this purpose.
