DG AFMS Lt Gen Arup Banerji & Lt Gen Rajeev Kanitkar (retd) pip Madhuri’s epaulettes

NEW DELHI: “Thank you, sir!” was Dr Madhuri Kanitkar’s crisp response to her husband , from one three-star general to another, after he pipped the epaulettes of a lieutenant general on her shoulders.

The Kanitkars became the country’s first-ever couple to have achieved the high rank of three-star officers in the armed forces when Lt Gen Madhuri Kanitkar took over as the new deputy chief of integrated defence staff (medical) here on Saturday. Her husband, Lt Gen Rajeev Kanitkar, an armoured corps officer, retired as the Army’s quartermaster general in 2017.

“We have spent only 12 of our 36 years of marriage together because of the tough and challenging life in the armed forces. But it was well worth it. My husband was a huge support and did not let me ever give up,” Kanitkar, a paediatric nephrologist, told TOI.

The duo’s rise in their careers was probably foretold right since their academy days. While Rajeev was awarded the President’s gold medal for excellence while passing out of the National Defence Academy at Khadakwasla , Madhuri won the same for being the best MBBS student in the Armed Forces Medical College in Pune.

Kanitkar is the third woman to reach the three-star rank in the armed forces after Air Marshal Padmavathy Bandopadhyay (retd) and Surgeon Vice-Admiral Punita Arora (retd).

Women medical officers have been getting permanent commission in the armed forces from the beginning unlike those in other wings, who will get it now after the Supreme Court’s recent strong directive to end gender inequality in the military.

Kanitkar, who was commissioned in the Army Medical Corps in December 1982 and later did her MD before training in paediatric nephrology at AIIMS, is looking forward to the challenge of being the new DCIDS (medical). Her appointment comes soon after Gen Bipin Rawat became the country’s first-ever chief of defence staff.

“With the CDS post being created, integration among the three services is a key result area. Though the medical services have always been tri-service, more integration can take place. Moreover, we also have to better balance tertiary healthcare at peace stations and combat healthcare in field areas,” she said.

Kanitkar, who has won several awards and is a member of the PM’s science and technology innovation advisory committee, has the requisite experience. Before assuming her new charge on Saturday, she was heading the medical services in the Army’s Northern Command in J&K and Ladakh.

