Chennai, March 10

Two lady cadets won the top honours of 2018, including the coveted Sword of Honour, at the passing out parade held in the Officers Training Academy (OTA) here on Saturday.

Academy Cadet Adjutant Preeti Choudhary received the Sword of Honour from Reviewing Officer Lt General Dewan Rabindranath Soni, General Officer Commanding-in Chief, Southern Command.

Senior Under Officer Vreeti was awarded the Silver Medal, the Defence Ministry said in a statement.

A B.Tech in Mechanical Engineering, Vreeti quit a highly paid job in Japan as a Design Engineer before joining OTA as a lady cadet.

Both the lady cadets are from Haryana and scored over more than 200 gentlemen cadets to bag the top two honours.

In the 55-year history of OTA, it is the third time that a lady cadet has won the Sword of Honour.

The first to win the honour was Divya Ajith Kumar in September 2010. She was followed by M. Anjana in March 2015.

The Sword of Honour is awarded to the First Cadet in overall order of merit. An Officer Cadet has to perform exceedingly well in physical tests, academic training, weapons training, leadership qualities, field engineering and drill apart from winning competitions like cross country run, boxing, debate and others.

The Gold Medal was won by Academy Under Officer Vivek Suraj.

A total of 255 Officer Cadets - including, 196 gentlemen cadets and 37 lady cadets commissioned as Officers of the Indian Army -- passed out following completion of vigorous training at the Academy.

Those passing out also included two gentleman cadets and three lady cadets from Bhutan, nine gentleman cadets from Afghanistan and eight gentleman cadets from Tajikistan who were commissioned into their respective armies. —IANS