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Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Interesting : ‘Sepoy’ / ‘Sipahi’

The word ‘Sepoy’, as we all know, is a derivative of ‘Sipahi’.

Ever wondered where the said term comes from. It does not have Indian origin, it is Ottoman.

The French even today have an Armoured Regiment of ‘Spahis’ in their Army.

More on the term can be found on Wikipedia.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

What an amazing piece of information. We have access to dic, e'pedias and internet.But it is almost impossible to acquire gen from these facilities on own.As they say knowledge has to be shared. This is one of them . Sometimes (actually many a times )we feel that India was the place from many things originated. How wrong. Thanks a lot for enlighting all.
GURDEEP SINGH
GROUP CAPTAIN (Retd )

PBOR said...

Indeed, interesting. I too always wonder about the origin of the term “PBOR” And, somehow I fell that the outcome would not be less interesting. Maj. Nadeep Sir may explore.

Ashutosh Sharma said...

Dear Navdeep,

Greeting for the new year!!

I would like to bring to your notice yet another discremination for SS officers, that too by AWES (Army welfare education society)

The eligibility criteria stands as follows:
Eligibility for Admission to course at AIE Delhi Cantt. is exclusively open for the wives/ dependant wards of serving/ retired Army personnel including the war widows. The dependants of following category of army personnel are eligible:-

a. Serving or retired Army personnel in receipt of regular pension or SS officers who have served army for 10 years.

b. Army personnel killed in action or those who died during their service or disabled in action in Army

c.AMC / ADC officers presently serving with Navy or Air Force who have served Army for more than 10 years and who are members of AOBF
MNS Officers who have served Amy for a minimum 10 years as regular MNS; APS personnel who are on deputation and have put in more than 10 years of service in Army or who have been directly recruited / commissioned in APS and have retired after completing their minimum service qualifying for pension; TA personnel who have completed 10 years of embodied service

d. Adopted wards of Army personnel provided they have been adopted at least five years before admission
Dependant sons / daughters of widows of Army personnel who were born of their mother’s first marriage and their mother has later re-married a civilian
Step children of army personnel who were born out of the wedlock where at least one parent belonged to Army

If our own institutes will dicreminate among officers in the name of SS/Regular and after than no of years of service than certainly we are heading towards weak bonding and categorisation of sub cadres.

Would request you to take up with appropriate authorities or else guide the course of action for mr to initiiate.

Warm Regards
Ashutosh Sharma
Major (Retd)

col santokh said...

But for the internet and people like Maj Navdeep, I would have gone from this world with the assumption that word 'Sepoy' originated in India despite having served in the Armd Forces for forty years. Thanks Navdeep.

Anonymous said...

And we think the policies hurt only armed services....

http://www.bangaloremirror.com/article/11/20110106201101060032204255dd3975a/JK-cop-who-shot-10-militants-begs-for-a-living-.html

Unknown said...

Dear Navdeep

sometime back AFT gave an desiopn about enhancement of penions to retired Majors.
till now we have not received any information about its implementation.
could you kindly advise me about its present status.

regards
Major D.P.Yadav

rajkavs@vsnl.net