New Delhi: Buoyed by the success of its
female officers in summiting the Mount Everest, the Indian Air
Force has formed a new all-women sky-diving team which will
showcase its first performance at the 79th anniversary
celebrations of the service on October 8.
"We are going to have an all-women sky-diving team and
they are practising for the Air Force Day parade on October
8," highly-placed IAF officials said here.
Significantly, this will be the first all-women
sky-diving team of any defence force in the world.
The team has six members who are training hard for the
occasion, the officials said.
This team will be there in addition of the `Akashganga`
sky-diving team, which has been performing for the last
several years at both national and international events.
The idea to have such a team was mooted after three
woman officers successfully scaled the Mount Everest in June,
they said.
"Not only our women officers scaled the Mount Everest,
they also took the second and sixth position in the
International High Altitude Marathon held there," an official
said.
Interestingly, the first place in the competition was
secured by Corporal Raju Sindhu, who also successfully
summited the Everest.
Flight Lieutenant Nivedita Choudhary, Squadron Leader
Nirupama Pandey and Flight Lieutenant Rajika Sharma reached
the 8,848-metre summit becoming the first three women IAF
officers to have achieved the feat.
PTI
