World Knows Whose Son Made India Proud”: Air Marshal Bharti’s Mother

In the armed forces’ briefing on Sunday, a day after the ceasefire was announced, one of the most important and articulate voices was that of Awadhesh Kumar Bharti, the Director General of Air Operations. From their thatched house in his ancestral village of Jhunni Kala in Bihar’s Purnia district, the Indian Air Force officer’s parents, their chest swelling with pride, recalled the brilliant young student who always dreamt of joining the armed forces and went on to play a key role in one of India’s most important counter-terror missions – Operation Sindoor. 

The son of a clerk in the irrigation department and a housewife, Air Marshal Bharti always did well academically, and this led to him getting selected for the Sainik School in Tilaia in what is now Jharkhand. He went on to gain admission to the National Defence Academy (NDA) in Pune, taking an important step towards realising his childhood dream.