Gaurav Arya

Some Lesser Known Facts About Gaurav Arya

• Gaurav Arya is a writer, a public speaker, and a senior consulting editor of strategic affairs at Republic Media Network. He had a brief stint of six years in the Indian Army before retiring as a Major in 1999, owing to medical reasons.

• Being the son of an IPS officer, Gaurav Arya was raised in a disciplined and patriotic environment. Since his childhood, he has had a special place for the Indian armed forces.

  

• After completing his graduation, he cracked the SSB exam and was recruited as a Second Lieutenant in the Indian Army. ^[3]Twitter He belonged to the 57th Short Service Commission (non-technical). At that time, the tenure for recruits who joined the army through Short Service Commission was five+five+four years.

  

• He did his training from the Officer’s Training Academy (OTA), Chennai under the administration of the Jessami Company. After completing his military training, Gaurav started his career in the Indian armed forces as the second-lieutenant in the 17th battalion of the Kumaon Regiment.
  

  

  

  

• Back in 1996, Gaurav was posted along the international border in tribal Lahaul and Spiti area when he fell off a hill and ended up being buried under snow. Although he was rescued by his battalion, the accident developed lung-related ailment in him.

• In 1999, after serving in the Indian Army for five years, Gaurav opted for voluntary retirement as per the protocol of Short Service Commission due to medical reasons.

• After leaving the army, Gaurav did an MBA in Marketing & Sales and then stepped into the corporate world. He worked at several administrative positions in big corporates, including HCL, Hutch (now Vodafone), Wipro, Ernst & Young, Spice Retail Ltd, Sterea Infratech Ltd, and Smart Group.

• Although he had officially retired from the Army in 1999, that didn’t obliterate the soldier in him. He continued to accumulate knowledge and write blogs on the topics related to defence and national security of India.

• He came to light in July 2016 when one of his articles that he wrote for Swarajya, “Open Letter To Burhan Wani,” went viral overnight. The letter was addressed to a Kashmiri terrorist Burhan Wani who was encountered by the Indian Armed forces a few days back. In the letter, he tried to elucidate how Kashmiri youth is being used by the Hurriyat leaders (Kashmiri separatists) for their personal agenda, that has nothing to do with improving the lives of Kashmiri citizens. The letter was appreciated by several prominent people in India, including the then serving Army General of India. Consequently, he was called in by several popular news channels to appear on their shows. In a short time, he became a known face in India, who would frequently show up on the News discussions, his blogs attracted quite a readership, he was invited to speak at distinguished institutions.

• In 2017, he was working as the president of Smart Group, a real estate corporate firm, when he was reached out by then a Times Now journalist, Arnab Goswami, who asked him to become a part of his new venture, Republic TV Network. In March 2017, he joined the Republic TV Network as the Senior Consulting Editor of Strategic Affairs. He hosts two shows on the channel, Patriot and Blitzkrieg.

• He is an eloquent public speaker and has delivered speeches at various reputed institutions, including Oxford University and the British Parliament.

• He runs a YouTube Channel, Defensive Offence, where he brings out independent information concerned with national interest in the area of defence and geopolitics. ^[4]Defensive Offence