Loading…
Air Vice Marshal Shakti Sharma became the first woman officer from outside the Medical Branch in the Indian defence services to attain the rank of Air Vice Marshal or its equivalent.
On 1 September 2026 she assumed the appointment of Assistant Chief of the Air Staff (Education) at Air Headquarters.
Commissioned into the Education Branch of the Indian Air Force on 18 June 1994, she has served in training establishments, field stations, Command Headquarters and Air Headquarters, and set up the IAF Chairs of Excellence at IIT Kanpur and Pune University.
She had earlier become the first woman officer from the Tri-Services to command a Sainik School, as Principal of Sainik School, Kapurthala.
| Star level | Indian Army | Indian Navy | Indian Air Force |
|---|---|---|---|
| One star | Brigadier | Commodore | Air Commodore |
| Two star | Major General | Rear Admiral | Air Vice Marshal |
| Three star | Lieutenant General | Vice Admiral | Air Marshal |
| Four star | General | Admiral | Air Chief Marshal |
Padma Bandopadhyay, of the IAF's Medical Branch, becomes the first woman officer of the Indian Air Force promoted to Air Vice Marshal (two-star rank); she later becomes the IAF's first woman Air Marshal, serving as Director General Medical Services (Air).
Surgeon Vice Admiral Punita Arora becomes the first woman in the Indian armed forces to reach three-star rank.
The Government decides to open the fighter stream of the IAF to women on an experimental basis.
Avani Chaturvedi, Bhawana Kanth and Mohana Singh are commissioned as the IAF's first batch of women fighter pilots.
In Secretary, Ministry of Defence v. Babita Puniya, the Supreme Court holds that women officers of the Indian Army are entitled to Permanent Commission and to command appointments, holding the earlier exclusion violative of Article 14.
AVM Shakti Sharma becomes the first non-medical woman two-star officer in the Indian defence services and takes charge as Assistant Chief of the Air Staff (Education).
Women have held senior ranks in the armed forces for over two decades, but almost entirely through the Medical Branch, which was opened to women long before the other streams. Air Marshal Padma Bandopadhyay became the IAF's first woman Air Vice Marshal in 2002 and later its first woman Air Marshal, but she was a flight surgeon specialising in aviation medicine and served as Director General Medical Services (Air). Surgeon Vice Admiral Punita Arora, the first woman in the armed forces to reach three-star rank, was likewise from the medical stream. AVM Shakti Sharma's milestone is that she comes from the Education Branch - a ground-duty, non-medical branch - so the two-star ceiling has now been crossed by a woman on the regular service career path rather than the medical one. Rank in the services is a function of length and type of service, which is why the litigation over Permanent Commission, as against the fixed-tenure Short Service Commission on which women were long inducted into the non-medical branches, matters so much to this kind of milestone.
Simple Analogy: Two ladders lead to the same height. Women were allowed to climb the medical ladder to the top long ago; this is the first time a woman has reached the same rung on the other ladder.
Held that women Short Service Commission officers of the Indian Army are entitled to Permanent Commission on par with men and are eligible for command appointments; denying them was held to violate the right to equality. The case began as a public interest litigation filed in 2003.
The equality guarantee on which the Babita Puniya judgment rests; the Court treated the blanket exclusion of women from Permanent Commission as arbitrary rather than a reasonable classification.
The limited-tenure route under which women were inducted into the non-medical branches. It carried no pensionary benefits, no permanent tenure and no command postings, which is why the higher ranks remained out of reach until Permanent Commission was extended.
The apex headquarters of the Indian Air Force, where the Chief of the Air Staff, the Vice Chief and the Principal Staff Officers sit. Assistant Chiefs of the Air Staff are senior staff appointments at this headquarters, each heading a functional area - here, Education.
A ground-duty non-technical branch responsible for education and training support across the Air Force - Air Force schools, libraries, training and development of personnel, and support to recruitment and departmental examinations. AVM Shakti Sharma was commissioned into this branch on 18 June 1994.
Runs the Sainik Schools under the Ministry of Defence. The schools were conceived in 1961 by the then Defence Minister V. K. Krishna Menon to correct the regional and class imbalance in the officer cadre and to prepare cadets for the National Defence Academy. Sainik School, Kapurthala, which AVM Shakti Sharma headed, was inaugurated by Krishna Menon in July 1961.
The Babita Puniya judgment on Permanent Commission is the legal hinge for every subsequent 'first woman' milestone in the services, and is regularly paired in Mains answers with the opening of the National Defence Academy and the fighter stream to women.
Sainik Schools, the Rashtriya Military Schools and the Rashtriya Indian Military College all feed the National Defence Academy; questions frequently ask which ministry runs which, and Sainik Schools sit under the Ministry of Defence through the Sainik Schools Society.
The Chairs of Excellence at IIT Kanpur and Pune University, set up under AVM Shakti Sharma, are an example of the services partnering academia on strategic and defence research - the same logic that runs through the Defence Innovation ecosystem and iDEX.
General Awareness > Current Affairs: Persons in News and Firsts
General Knowledge > Armed Forces: Ranks, Branches and Appointments
GS Paper 1 > Society: Role of Women; GS Paper 3 > Security
'Firsts' in the armed forces are a staple of SSC, CDS and NDA general awareness papers, and feed UPSC Mains answers on women and society.
An officer of the rank of Major General (Army), Rear Admiral (Navy) or Air Vice Marshal (Air Force), so called from the two stars in the rank insignia.
A senior staff appointment at Air Headquarters heading a functional area of the Air Force; ACAS (Education) heads the education function.
A commission that runs until the normal age of retirement, carrying pension and eligibility for command and higher rank - as against Short Service Commission, which is fixed-term.
The Indian Army, Indian Navy and Indian Air Force taken together.