43 northeasterners crack NDA

By our Staff Reporter

GUWAHATI, Dec 18: As many as 43 students from the Northeast have cracked the tiol Defence Academy (NDA) entrance test for a three-year term of training for sending them for a one-year pre-commission training to the Indian Military Academy at Dheradun, Air Force Academy (IAA) Dundigal in Hyderabad and the Indian val Academy (I) at Ezhimala in Kerala.

Talking to The Sentinel, NDA’s academic administrator R Eswaran said: “The Northeast is one of our focused zones. Students from the region have good physic and strong mentality. They need the sharpness that we exactly offer. Our focus is in the region for both NDA and engineering.”

Eswaran further said: “We admit both boys and girls, but they’ve separate campuses. While we take boys from class VI onward, we take girls from class XI onward.”

The tiol Defence Academy (NDA), Khadakvasla, Pune, an institution commissioned in 1955, trains cadets for 3 years before sending them for 1-year pre-commission training. Each year, approximately 4.5 lakh candidates take the NDA entrance examition for admission to the undergraduate programme in Science or Arts combined with of course defence studies.  Eventually only 200 candidates make it to the NDA after the grueling written test followed by physical, social skill tests and medical examitions, Eswaran said.

The NDA admits students twice each year and gets applicants from different parts of the country.  Students from CBSE, State Boards and from even top-rung schools apply to join the NDA making it amply evident that defence as a career still holds charm in an otherwise capitalistic economy.