New Delhi, Nov. 25 -- The Chief of Army Staff General Upendra Dwivedi on Tuesday paid homage at the National War Memorial to honour the sacrifice of Param Vir Chakra awardee Major Ramaswamy Parameswaran and other soldiers during Operation Pawan in Sri Lanka in the late 1980s. Major Parameswaran laid down his life on this day in 1987.

Operation Pawan, undertaken under the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord signed on 29 July 1987, marked India's first major overseas peacekeeping deployment. The Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) entered Sri Lanka in August 1987, tasked with disarming the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and stabilising the Jaffna Peninsula. At its peak, the IPKF strength reached nearly 100,000 personnel, who operated in intense c...