Profile
HONOURABLE GOVERNOR OF MIZORAM
General (Dr) Vijay Kumar Singh, PVSM, AVSM, YSM (Retd) was born on 10 May 1951 to the late Captain Jagat Singh (later Colonel) and late Smt. Krishna Kumari at Pune. He is married to Smt. Bharti Singh with the couple having two daughters and one grandchild. An alumnus of Birla Public School, Pilani and National Defence Academy, he served as the 26th Chief of the Army Staff of the Indian Army.
Military Career: General Singh was commissioned into the 2nd Battalion of The Rajput Regiment (Kali Chindi) on 14 June 1970. He is also an honour graduate of the Defence Services Staff College, Wellington with a competitive vacancy. He is also a graduate of US Army Rangers Course at Fort Benning, USA and USA Army War College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania.
General Singh was awarded Yudh Seva Medal (YSM) for operations as part of IPKF in Sri Lanka, the Ati Vishisht Seva Medal (AVSM) for distinguished service while commanding a counter-insurgency force in 2005 and Para Vishisht Seva Medal (PVSM) in recognition of his exceptional and distinguished services in the Eastern Theatre in 2009. He became Chief of the Army Staff on 31 March 2010 and retired on 31 May 2012.
On 11 March 2011, General Singh was inducted into the United States War College (Class of 2001) International Fellows Hall of Fame. He is the 33rd International and the first Indian Armed Forces Officer to be inducted.
Political Career: General Singh joined the Bhartiya Janta Party on 01 March 2014 and successfully contested Lok Sabha Election from Ghaziabad constituency (2.4 million plus electorate) General Singh won the 2014 LS election with the highest margin in the country. He was entrusted with being MoS for External Affairs, MoS Independent charge for DoNER and MoS for Overseas Indian Affairs. As MoS MEA, General Singh represented India several bilateral and multilateral events as well as Special Assignment in Asia, Africa, Latin America & The Caribbean, Region and Europe.
He is also credited for rescuing more than 7000 people from Yemen and Sudan during civil war besides bringing back mortal remains of 39 Indian who were kidnapped and killed by ISIS in Iraq. He has also contested the Parliamentary election in 2019 and won the seat with huge margin of 5.15 lakh votes from Ghaziabad. He was sworn in as Hon’ble MoS Road Transport and Highways. In June 2021, he was given additional charge of MoS Civil Aviation.
Consequent to outbreak of war between Russia and Ukraine almost 18000 Indian students were stranded in war torn Ukraine. Government of India launched Operation Ganga for evacuation of these students. General VK Singh was sent to Poland to organise rescue operations as part of Operation Ganga. He successfully rescued and evacuated almost 4000 students from that area.
In 2023, a tunnel under construction in Uttarakhand at Silkyara collapsed trapping 41 workers. General (Dr) VK Singh PVSM, AVSM, YSM (Retd) as part of MoRTH stayed for 16 days for this rescue and 41 workers were rescued without any harm.
