Wing Commander Manechenellore Srinivasan Shankar (15810) Aeronautical Engineering (Electronics) was commissioned on 02 Jul 1979 in the Engineering branch of the IAF. During 25 years of service he has held important appointments in field formations and at Command HQ including Senior Engineer (Electronics), Command Electronic Data Processing Officer and Senior Software Engineer at Software Development Institute. He is an M Tech from IIT, Kanpur. He has been commended by the Chief of Air Staff in Jan 1984 and by AOC-in-C in Jan 1989. Presently, he is posted to Sukhoi Project Team (SUPT), Moscow, since 28 Sep 2001 as the Software Group Leader and the Deputy Team Leader.

One of the main tasks of SUPT is to integrate a large number of customer furnished equipment of different origin on the Su-30 MKI. These include Mission Computer, Display Processor, Radar Computer, Inertial Navigation System, Multifunction Displays, Head Up Display, Flight Data Recorder, Laser Designation Pod etc. As the Software Group Leader it is Wing Commander Shankar's job to ensure an elegant software integration of Indian and western systems. The flawless integration of these systems has been acknowledged worldwide and has also been highly appreciated by the Russian aircraft industry itself. A very large percentage of this Indo-Russian success story is the direct result of Wing Commander Shankar's exceptional understanding of the task, his knowledge, his wisdom, his ability to foresee problems and his willingness to work long hours.

His effort towards the IAF achieving unilateral upgrade capability, that is capability to independently integrate weapons and systems on Su-30MKI, needs a special mention. Even though this capability was to be provided nine months after Phase 3 aircraft delivery, through the dedicated efforts of Wing Commander Shankar, SUPT has already started 'test cases' such as integration of Laser Guided Bombs etc. This will ensure that full capability will be available to undertake these tasks in India and that the Russian side will not be able to hold back information providing independent upgrade capability to the IAF.

For this distinguished service of high order, the Hon'ble President is pleased to award 'Vishisht Seva Medal' to Wing Commander Manechenellore Srinivasan Shankar.