Presentation of Colours to the National Defence Academy 1978

The National Defence Academy (NDA) is the Joint Services academy of the Indian Armed Forces, where cadets of the three services, the Army, the Navy and the Air Force train together before they go on to pre-commissioning training in their respective service academies. The NDA is located in Khadakwasla near Pune, Maharashtra. It is the first tri-service academy in the world.
NDA alumni have led and fought in every major conflict in which the Indian Armed Forces has been called to action since the academy was established. The alumni include 3 Param Vir Chakra recipients and 9 Ashoka Chakra recipients.
I had the honour and privilege to pass out of the portals of this great institution as a naval cadet, in December 1961 with the XXIst Course

In 1941 Lord Linlithgow, then  Governor General of India, received a gift of £100,000 from a grateful  Sudanese Government towards building a war memorial in recognition of the sacrifices of Indian troops in the liberation of Sudan in the  East African Campaign duringWorld War II. At the end of the war, Field Marshal  Claude Auchinleck, then Commander-in-Chief of the Indian Army, drawing on experiences of the army during the war, led a committee to study various military academies around the world and submitted a report to the Government of India in Dec. 1946. The committee recommended the establishment of a Joint Services Military Academy, with training modelled on the United States Military Academy at West Point.

After the independence of India in Aug. 1947, the Chiefs of Staff Committee immediately implemented the recommendations of the Auchinleck report. The committee initiated an action plan in late 1947 to commission a permanent defence academy and began the search for a suitable site. It also decided to set up an interim training academy, known as the Joint Services Wing (JSW), which was commissioned on 1 Jan. 1949 at the Armed Forces Academy (now known as the Indian Military Academy ) in Dehradun. Initially, after two years of training at the JSW, Army cadets went on to the Military wing of the AFA for two years of further pre-commission training, while the Navy and Air Force cadets were sent to Dartmouth and Cranwell in the United Kingdom for further training.

Following partition , India's share of the monetary gift received from Sudan, amounted to £70,000 (the remaining £30,000 went to Pakistan). The Indian Army decided to use these funds to partly cover the cost of construction of the NDA. The foundation stone for the academy was laid by then Prime Minister of India , Jawaharlal Nehru on 6 Oct. 1949. The National Defence Academy was formally commissioned on 7 Dec. 1954, with an inauguration ceremony held on 16 Jan. 1955. The JSW program was transferred from the AFA to the NDA.

The cover has a stamp with a postmark showing the crest or Coat of Arms of the NDA and a picture depicting the Sudan Block. Thee folder has a photograph of three cadets with the flag of the NDA aster the cour presentation on 16^th December 1978.