The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Honing their drill, dancing skills

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Dec 22, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Honing their drill, dancing skills

K. Manikandan

NCC cadets put through a rigorous training programme ahead of R-Day camp

TAMBARAM: Over 100 NCC cadets from the Tamil Nadu, Pondicherry and Andaman Directorate are training hard for the Republic Day Parade camp to be held in New Delhi in January 2006.

Amid the continuous drizzle and with limited space at their disposal, the cadets are fine tuning their skills in rifle drill and marching at the A.M Jain College, Meenambakkam. Inside the `barracks', other cadets who are part of the cultural team are perfecting the timing to ensure that there is complete synchronisation of each and every dance step. The 114 cadets, are the among several thousands who aspired to be part of the camp in New Delhi, an annual event where cadets from all over the country compete for the Prime Minister's Banner for the overall winner.

The State has 1.8 lakh cadets, of whom thousands compete at various stages and inter group competitions before arriving at the launch camps.

Lt. Col. Sunil Dhingra, who led the Tamil Nadu Directorate to New Delhi this year, is the camp commander. He said the contingent came back with ten trophies and were placed third overall.

Lt. Colonel M. Bhaskaran, who is leading the present contingent, said the cadets' commitment to coming back with the banner was reflected in the manner in which they trained during difficult conditions in the past two months.

The cadets had been put through a rigorous training programme and their morale was high.

Achutanandh is the lone cadet from Andaman.

The best cadets, including Pon Madhuri and Uma Maheswari, both from Ethiraj College, said they were confident of the contingent coming back with a bagful of medals and trophies.

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