Wife of Soldier Who Laid His Life in Galwan Valley Skirmish Clears Army Test, To be Trained for Officer

The wife of one of the 20 Galwan soldiers, who laid their lives in a skirmish with the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) in June 2020, has cleared the personality and intelligence test and will now join the Chennai-based Officers Training Academy (OTA).

Twenty-three-year-old Rekha Devi gave the five-day Services Selection Board (SSB) interview in Allahabad. She has been recommended for pre-commission training at OTA, the Hindustan Times reported. At the OTA, she will be trained for nine months before being commissioned as lieutenants in the army.

Devi, hailing from Rewa in Madhya Pradesh, received her husband Naik Deepak Singh’s posthumous Vir Chakra from President Ram Nath Kovind last November. Singh belonged to the 16th Battalion of Bihar Regiment.

After clearing the interview, Devi will have to undergo a medical examination before the final merit list for OTA candidates is released by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC).

China’s losses in the Galwan Valley clash in 2020 were much higher than reported, with many soldiers drowning while crossing a fast-flowing river in darkness, an investigative Australian newspaper has claimed.

The Klaxon cited findings by unnamed researchers and mainland Chinese bloggers in the report and said they have declined to be named on security grounds, but their findings appear to “shed significant light on the saga”.

“Claims of substantial Chinese casualties are not new, however evidence provided by a group of social media researchers, which The Klaxon has independently built on, appears to support claims that China’s casualties extended well beyond the four soldiers named by Beijing,” it said. The report said it also showed the extreme lengths Beijing has gone to silence discussion about the battle.

“China’s losses in the high-altitude 2020 Galwan Valley border clash with India — the deadliest confrontation between the two giants in over four decades — were much higher than reported with many soldiers drowning while crossing a fast-flowing, sub-zero river in darkness, new research claims,” the report said. The eastern Ladakh border row escalated after the Galwan Valley clashes on June 15, 2020.

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