Vice Admiral Satish Soni is a retired Indian Navy officer. He is a former Commandant of the National Defence Academy (NDA) and Commander-in-Chief of Southern Command and Eastern Command.

Education

Soni is an alumnus of the NDA and a specialist in

Navigation Navigation is a field of study that focuses on the process of monitoring and controlling the movement of a craft or vehicle from one place to another.Bowditch, 2003:799. The field of navigation includes four general categories: land navigation, ...

and Aircraft Direction, the Flag Officer is an alumnus of the Defence Services Staff College, Wellington and College of Naval Warfare, Mumbai.

Career

Soni was commissioned into the Indian Navy on 1 July 1976. The Flag Officer's sea commands include the ocean going

Pondicherry-class minesweeper The ''Pondicherry'' class are a class of minesweepers built for the Indian Navy by the Soviet Union. They are modified versions of the . The vessels were acquired in two batches. The first were purchased from 1977 to 1980 and the second from 198 ...

INS Kakinada(M 70), the guided missile corvette , the

guided-missile frigate A frigate () is a type of warship. In different eras, the roles and capabilities of ships classified as frigates have varied somewhat. The name frigate in the 17th to early 18th centuries was given to any full-rigged ship built for speed and ...

and the guided missile destroyer Delhi. He has had the honour of having commissioned two warships, ''Kakinada'' and ''Talwar'', in

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

, as the

Commanding Officer The commanding officer (CO) or sometimes, if the incumbent is a general officer, commanding general (CG), is the officer in command of a military unit. The commanding officer has ultimate authority over the unit, and is usually given wide latitu ...

. His staff appointments include deputy director of Personnel, Joint Director of Naval Plans and Naval Assistant to Chief of the Naval Staff at Integrated Headquarters-

Ministry of Defence {{unsourced, date=February 2021 A ministry of defence or defense (see spelling differences), also known as a department of defence or defense, is an often-used name for the part of a government responsible for matters of defence, found in states ...

(Navy).

Vice Admiral Satish Soni presenting a memento to Lieutenant General J Sikand

Vice Admiral Satish Soni taking the salute at the 2015 Republic Day Parade at ENC

On his elevation to Flag rank, assumed responsibilities as the Assistant Chief of Personnel (Human Resource Development) at Integrated Headquarters-

(Navy). Subsequently, the Flag Officer commanded the

Eastern Fleet Eastern may refer to: Transportation *China Eastern Airlines, a current Chinese airline based in Shanghai * Eastern Air, former name of Zambia Skyways *Eastern Air Lines, a defunct American airline that operated from 1926 to 1991 *Eastern Air L ...

of the Indian Navy, and thereafter took over as Chief of Staff, Eastern Naval Command. Vice Admiral Satish then followeded it by being appointed as Commandant, National Defence Academy at Khadakvasla, Pune from 22 November 2009 to 31 December 2010. He served as Flag Officer Commanding in Chief, Southern Naval Command from 2012 to 2014. In his previous assignment, the Vice Admiral served as Deputy Chief of the Naval Staff at Integrated Headquarters

(Navy) at New Delhi. He served as Commander in Chief Eastern Command before his retirement in 2016. Soni is a keen sportsman and represented the Indian Navy in squash and

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping wi ...

in his younger days.

Awards and decorations

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Soni, Satish Living people Indian Navy admirals Deputy Chiefs of Naval Staff (India) Flag Officers Commanding Eastern Fleet Commandants of the National Defence Academy Recipients of the Param Vishisht Seva Medal Recipients of the Ati Vishisht Seva Medal Year of birth missing (living people) Recipients of the Nau Sena Medal Defence Services Staff College alumni