Chandigarh, Feb 16
It is an academy with a
difference. The sprawling 10-acre Minerva Academy campus near here has a
singular focus - to train young men and women to be part of the
military.
With a track record of contributing over 35,000
officers to the army, Indian Air Force (IAF) and the navy, the Minerva
Academy, set up in 1955 by J. Deol and her husband Lt. Col. I.S. Deol
continues to be the most successful nursery for youths aspiring to
become officers in the defence forces.
With legendary Param Vir
Chakra (PVC) awardees, Kargil War hero Captain Vikram Batra and Flying
Officer Nirmaljit Singh Sekhon, the first and only PVC awardee from the
IAF, having been Minervans, the academy surely feels proud that some of
the best known heroes of India have been trained here.
"Cadets
from Minerva have achieved more (battle) honours than any regiment of
the army," Ranjit Bajaj, the chief operating officer of the academy and a
maternal grandson of founder Col. Deol, told IANS at its campus about
15 km from Chandigarh.
Former army chief and later Arunachal
Pradesh Governor General J.J. Singh had also trained at Minerva.
Minerva's roll of honour includes several other top-ranking officers in
all three services.
Decorated Captain A.S. Cheema, who summitted Mt. Everest, has also been a student at Minerva.
"Our
students have gone on to hold over 1,000 top positions in the Indian
armed forces. Every fourth officer in the armed forces has been a
student of Minerva. About 10 percent of our students are now girls who
wish to join the armed forces," Bajaj told IANS.
The academy
specialises in training youth for the Services Selection Board (SSB),
the first step towards entry into the armed forces. The 10-day training,
spread over 100 hours, includes group tasks, physical obstacles, group
discussions, interviews, public speaking and more.
So stringent
and effective is the training methodology that even toilets, bathroom
curtains and hostel walls carry information about the armed forces -- so
that students utilise every minute of their time at Minerva.
The
faculty comprises former officers from defence forces who have been
part of the SSBs and professionals. Among the popular faculty members
over the years has been 'Mani Sir' (real name K. Vasudeva Panicker) who
has been around for nearly 35 years. Another faculty member, Wing
Commander S.P. Oberoi, 85, has been around for over three decades.
At
a recent event to mark 60 years of the academy, Vishal Batra, younger
twin of PVC awardee Captain Vikram Batra, fondly remembered how both
brothers from the hill town of Palampur in Himachal Pradesh learnt their
first lessons for a career in the army at Minerva in 1996.
"Vikram
and I used to go to a neighbour's house in Palampur, as we did not have
a TV, to watch the serial 'Param Vir Chakra'. I never imagined that one
day my brother would win the PVC and become so famous," said Vishal
Batra, who was rejected twice by the SSB and now has a corporate job.
The
academy, named after the Roman Goddess of War and Wisdom, was
originally founded by J. Deol in 1955 at Shimla. It was briefly shifted
to Jalandhar before moving to Chandigarh and later to its present
location near Chandigarh. Col. Deol, who was commissioned into the
British Indian Army in mid-1940s, took premature retirement to be part
of Minerva.
