Dhoni, Bindra conferred Lt. Colonel rank

Sep 13, 2011 |

New Delhi

Tags:

Indian cricket team captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Olympic gold medallist shooter Abhinav Bindra were on Tuesday conferred with the rank of honourary Lieutenant Colonel in the Territorial Army by President Pratibha Patil.

"President Pratibha Patil has granted the honourary rank of Lieutenant Colonel in the Territorial Army to the captain of Indian cricket team Mahendra Singh Dhoni and the ace shooter Abhinav Bindra," a defence Ministry spokesperson said.

"The honour has been bestowed on Dhoni and Bindra for their outstanding contribution in the field of cricket and shooting respectively, and their commitment to the Army on various occasions," the spokesperson added.

Dhoni led India to World Cup victory earlier this year and was instrumental in taking the team to the No 1 spot in Test rankings for the first time ever.

Bindra had won the only individual Olympic gold medal for India at the Beijing Olympics in 2008.

Both these sportspersons have joined the ranks of senior cricketers, Kapil Dev and Sachin Tendulkar who have been conferred with honorary ranks in the armed forces.

Kapil Dev is an Honorary Lt Col in the Territorial Army, while Tendulkar is an honorary Group Captain in the Indian Air Force.

The Defence Ministry has also cleared a proposal to fly Dhoni and Tendulkar in IAF's frontline Su-30MKI air superiority fighter aircraft at the Lohegaon airbase.

Industrialist Vijaypat Singhania has also been granted the rank of honorary Air Commodore.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/95835" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd></li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-a58e1da4136525cc4a32dff0a51deee7" value="form-a58e1da4136525cc4a32dff0a51deee7" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="80616279" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>