Wing Commander Singha says good bye to Gujarat

Wing Commander Tarun Kumar Singha is packing up for his new assignment. It is to head the NCC unit at the Benaras Hindu University. In the career of a man in uniform transfers are frequent and interaction with locals is rare. But, in the case of Singha it is a different story. He is the man who has brought defence journalism to Gujarat, the border state. To summarise his over four year stay in Gujarat, he is the man who did a lot to sensitize people and press of Gujarat to the world of Defence.
This chubby faced officer with a broad grin showed best of him as four in one PRO during his stay here.Whether it was his own Indian Air Force or Army, Navy and Coast Guard.Till his appointment as the Defence PRO in Gujarat, the first ever, defence assignments were mostly a privilege of Delhi based journalists. Even during the Kutch earthquake, planeload of Delhi based journalists were flown to Gujarat by the Defence for the reporting of its rescue and relief operation.

It was during these four years that for the first time a contingent of local journalists was flown to the great air fire power show held at Pokharan. Media interaction with the pilots of Mig 21 and their families was a different kind of operation. It was to counter image problem of the aircraft which has got the dubious title of flying coffin.People of Gujarat saw magnificent show of Suryakiran in the Gujarat sky while the renowned Naval Orchestra offered some of its great compositions to the public. Naval band had its first show in Gujarat.

Series of mega recruitment camps gave exposure to the youth of Gujarat to the openings in the defence forces and thus increased the flow of Gujaratis in the defence forces.Certainly these are few among a number of initiatives of Singha.

In the true spirit of a warrior, he built Defence PRO office from a scratch.And made it a hot spot of activities. All from the word go in February 2003. Going out meeting journalists, creating a data base of information about media was a routine affair for several months. Jagadish Patadia of the Press Information Bureau played his adjutant in his assignments. Patadia stood for Defence whether Singha was here or on assignment outside.
An avid documentary maker, he has conceptualized, scripted and coordinated several documentaries on Defence.These include documentaries on Eastern, South Western and Southern Air Commands, Border Roads Organisation, Army Aviation in CI role, Helicopter Operations by IAF in Arunachal Pradesh and the Indian Coast Guard. He is the first ever PRO to have been sent overseas for a specialist PR assignment by the MOD to cover the Indo-UK bilateral air exercise, codenamed 'Indradhanush-07' in June-July 2007. A regular at scripting the commentary for the Republic Day Parade, he headed the PR team that wrote features and press releases of the Military World Games at Hyderabad in October 2007.

Wg Cdr Singha has been awarded commendations by the Chief of the Air Staff, Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief, South Western Air Command, Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Western Naval Command, Commander Coast Guard Region (West); and on 26 Jan 2006, he was awarded the Vishisht Seva Medal for his distinguished service of a high order by the President of India. He is the first PRO outside Delhi circuit to achieve the distinction.

In his own words, the most memorable event of his assignment was the coverage of the historic flight of Dr. APJ Kalam's in Sukhoi-30 MKI on June 8, 2006.

One of his projects was to help lift sagging image of Mig 21 which won adjectives like flying coffin.