Lionel Balagalle
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Lionel Balagalle
General Lionel Piyananda Balagalle RWP, RSP, VSV, USP, VSP (1947 – 26 October 2023) was a senior Sri Lankan army general. He served as Commander of the Sri Lanka Army and Chief of the Defence Staff. Early life and education Born in Colombo, both Balagalle's parents were teachers. Having received his primary education in a rural school in Ratnapura, he attended Ananda College for his secondary education. He excelled in sports winning college colours. He was a senior school prefect and a cadet. Military career Early career Balagalle studied medicine before he joined the Ceylon Army as an Officer Cadet on 5 April 1965. Receiving his basic training at the Army Training Centre, Diyatalawa, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the 4th Regiment, Ceylon Artillery on 5 April 1967. As an artillery officer he took part in counterinsurgency operations in the 1971 JVP Insurrection and later attended the Indian Army School of Artillery in Deolali from September 1971 to ...
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General
A general officer is an Officer (armed forces), officer of highest military ranks, high rank in the army, armies, and in some nations' air forces, space forces, and marines or naval infantry. In some usages the term "general officer" refers to a rank above colonel."general, adj. and n.". OED Online. March 2021. Oxford University Press. https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/77489?rskey=dCKrg4&result=1 (accessed May 11, 2021) The term ''general'' is used in two ways: as the generic title for all grades of general officer and as a specific rank. It originates in the Tudor period, 16th century, as a shortening of ''captain general'', which rank was taken from Middle French ''capitaine général''. The adjective ''general'' had been affixed to officer designations since the late Middle Ages, late medieval period to indicate relative superiority or an extended jurisdiction. Today, the title of ''general'' is known in some countries as a four-star rank. However, different countries use di ...
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Ananda College
''Appamādo Amathapadan'' (Buddhist quote from the Apramada Vagga in the Dhammapada) , motto_translation = Heedfulness, Punctuality leads to Nirvana , location = P De S Kularatne Mawatha , city = Colombo , country = Sri Lanka , coordinates = , image = , image size = 150px , caption = Crest of Ananda College , pushpin_map = Sri Lanka Colombo Central , pushpin_image = , pushpin_mapsize = , pushpin_map_alt = , pushpin_map_caption = Location in central Colombo , pushpin_label = , pushpin_label_position = right , type = National , established = , founder = Colonel Henry Steel Olcott , principal = Lal Dissanayake , grades = 1–13 , gender = Boys , age_range = 6 to 1 ...
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1987–1989 JVP Insurrection
The 1987–1989 JVP insurrection, also known as the 1988–1989 revolt or the JVP troubles, was an armed revolt in Sri Lanka, led by the Marxist–Leninist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna, against the Government of Sri Lanka. The 1987–1989 insurrection, like the 1971 JVP insurrection, was unsuccessful. The main phase of the insurrection was a low-intensity conflict that lasted from April 1987 to December 1989. The insurgents led by the JVP resorted to subversion, assassinations, raids, and attacks on military and civilian targets while the Sri Lankan government reacted through counter-insurgency operations to suppress the revolt. Guerrilla forces of the insurrection were led by the military branch of the JVP, the Deshapremi Janatha Viyaparaya. The insurgency reached its peak in 1988 and impacted all Sri Lankan civilians, including those without any political stake in the situation. Attacks on civilians by pro-government guerrillas began after the re-election of president Ranasin ...
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Vadamarachchi Operation
Operation Liberation also known as the Vadamarachchi Operation was the military offensive carried out by the Sri Lankan Armed Forces in May and June 1987 to recapture the territory of Vadamarachchi in the Jaffna peninsula from the LTTE (Tamil Tigers). At the time it was the largest combined services operation undertaken by the armed forces deploying multiple brigade size formation, becoming the first conventional warfare engagement on Sri Lankan soil after the end of British colonial rule. The operation involved nearly 4,000 troops, supported by ground-attack aircraft, helicopter gunships and naval gun boats. The offensive achieved its primary objective, however operations were suspended when the Indian government dropped food supplies over Jaffna in Operation Poomalai on June 4, 1987, which prompted the Sri Lankan government to accept the Indo-Sri Lankan Accord. Background Following the onset of the Sri Lankan Civil War, formally marked by the ambush of Sri Lanka Army ...
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Major
Major (commandant in certain jurisdictions) is a military rank of commissioned officer status, with corresponding ranks existing in many military forces throughout the world. When used unhyphenated and in conjunction with no other indicators, major is one rank above captain, and one rank below lieutenant colonel. It is considered the most junior of the field officer ranks. Background Majors are typically assigned as specialised executive or operations officers for battalion-sized units of 300 to 1,200 soldiers while in some nations, like Germany, majors are often in command of a company. When used in hyphenated or combined fashion, the term can also imply seniority at other levels of rank, including ''general-major'' or ''major general'', denoting a low-level general officer, and ''sergeant major'', denoting the most senior non-commissioned officer (NCO) of a military unit. The term ''major'' can also be used with a hyphen to denote the leader of a military band such as ...
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Joint Operations Command (Sri Lanka)
The Office of the Chief of Defence Staff (OCDS) is the Sri Lanka Armed Forces operational level headquarters of the Chief of the Defence Staff (CDS), responsible for coordinating joint armed force's operations. However the respective service commands have much autonomy for their deployments. It was formerly known as the ''Joint Operations Headquarters (JOH)''. The JOH was created in 1999 replacing the civilian ''Joint Operations Bureau'' which had existed briefly in 1999. The origins of the JOH could be traced back to the Joint Operations Command (JOC) established in 1985 due to the need of co-ordination of operations among the tri-services and the police with the escalation of the Sri Lankan Civil War. The head of the JOC is the Chief of the Defence Staff (CDS), currently. The duties of the CDS was extended by the ''Chief of Defence Staff Act No. 35 of 2009''. JOH is located in Colombo Colombo ( ; si, කොළඹ, translit=Koḷam̆ba, ; ta, கொழும்ப ...
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Military Intelligence
Military intelligence is a military discipline that uses information collection and analysis approaches to provide guidance and direction to assist commanders in their decisions. This aim is achieved by providing an assessment of data from a range of sources, directed towards the commanders' mission requirements or responding to questions as part of operational or campaign planning. To provide an analysis, the commander's information requirements are first identified, which are then incorporated into intelligence collection, analysis, and dissemination. Areas of study may include the operational environment, hostile, friendly and neutral forces, the civilian population in an area of combat operations, and other broader areas of interest. Intelligence activities are conducted at all levels, from tactical to strategic, in peacetime, the period of transition to war, and during a war itself. Most governments maintain a military intelligence capability to provide analytical and i ...
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Pune
Pune (; ; also known as Poona, (List of renamed Indian cities and states#Maharashtra, the official name from 1818 until 1978) is one of the most important industrial and educational hubs of India, with an estimated population of 7.4 million As of 2021, Pune Metropolitan Region is the largest in Maharashtra by area, with a geographical area of 7,256 sq km. It has been ranked "the most liveable city in India" several times. Pune is also considered to be the cultural and educational capital of Maharashtra. Along with the municipal corporation area of Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation, PCMC, Pune Municipal Corporation, PMC and the three Cantonment Board, cantonment towns of Pune Camp, Camp, Khadki, and Dehu Road, Pune forms the urban core of the eponymous Pune Metropolitan Region (PMR). Situated {{convert, 560, m, 0, abbr=off Height above sea level, above sea level on the Deccan Plateau, Deccan plateau, on the right bank of the Mutha River, Mutha river,{{cite web , last=Nala ...
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Deolali
Deolali, or Devlali (), is a small hill station and a census town in Nashik district of the Indian state of Maharashtra. Now it is part of Nashik Metropolitan Region. Deolali has an important army base. Deolali Camp, one of the oldest Indian military centres in the country, started the Air Force Station, the School of Artillery of the Indian Army, and other establishments in this region. Deolali has plenty of temples and tourist destinations. History British period Deolali was a British Army camp 100 miles north-east of Mumbai (then called Bombay). It was the original location of the Army Staff College (now the Defence Services Staff College of India and the Pakistan Command and Staff College). It is also the source of the British slang noun :wikt:doolally tap, doolally tap, loosely meaning "camp fever", and referring to the apparent madness of men waiting for ships back to Britain after finishing their tour of duty. By the 1940s this had been widely shortened to just ":wikt:d ...
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Indian Army
The Indian Army is the land-based branch and the largest component of the Indian Armed Forces. The President of India is the Supreme Commander of the Indian Army, and its professional head is the Chief of Army Staff (COAS), who is a four-star general. Two officers have been conferred with the rank of field marshal, a five-star rank, which is a ceremonial position of great honour. The Indian Army was formed in 1895 alongside the long established presidency armies of the East India Company, which too were absorbed into it in 1903. The princely states had their own armies, which were merged into the national army after independence. The units and regiments of the Indian Army have diverse histories and have participated in several battles and campaigns around the world, earning many battle and theatre honours before and after Independence. The primary mission of the Indian Army is to ensure national security and national unity, to defend the nation from external aggression an ...
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Artillery
Artillery is a class of heavy military ranged weapons that launch munitions far beyond the range and power of infantry firearms. Early artillery development focused on the ability to breach defensive walls and fortifications during sieges, and led to heavy, fairly immobile siege engines. As technology improved, lighter, more mobile field artillery cannons developed for battlefield use. This development continues today; modern self-propelled artillery vehicles are highly mobile weapons of great versatility generally providing the largest share of an army's total firepower. Originally, the word "artillery" referred to any group of soldiers primarily armed with some form of manufactured weapon or armor. Since the introduction of gunpowder and cannon, "artillery" has largely meant cannons, and in contemporary usage, usually refers to shell-firing guns, howitzers, and mortars (collectively called ''barrel artillery'', ''cannon artillery'', ''gun artillery'', or - a layman t ...
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