Flight Lieutenant Nanakkal Narayanan Amrithalingam has been operating as Signals Leader in one of our transport squadrons in J & K area since 1959. He has flown a total of about 1300 operational hours in this area. Undeterred by the hazards involved in the mountainous terrain, he has always volunteered for any difficult mission assigned to his squadron. With his professional ability and enthusiasm, he succeeded in raising the standard of communication in his Squadron to a high degree of efficiency.

On 26th October, 1962, while on a vital supply-dropping mission. The wireless sets in his aircraft became faulty and communications with the control center became impossible. Realizing the importance of his mission, he got down to the rectification of the defects and succeeded in re-establishing communication with the base. But for his presence of mind, the mission might have had to be abandoned and the airlift of the vital supplies to the forward dropping zone would have been delayed.

Throughout, Flight Lieutenant Amrithalingam displayed professional skill, courage and devotion to duty of a high order.

Group Captain Manakkal Narayanan Amri-thalingam VM (5413) was commissioned in the Aeronautical Engineering (Electronics) Branch of the IAF on 20 May 57. As a Flight Signaller, he served in operational areas between Jan 59 to Sept 63 and was awarded Vayu Seva Medal for his performance during the Chinese operations. He qualified with distinction, the postgraduate course in avionics at Cranfield Institute of Technology. The officer was also trained in France on Semi Automatic Data Handling System.

On return, the officer was posted at Air HQs, where he served as specialist avionics member on the evaluation teams for the Jaguar, Harrier and Nimrod aircraft, and made significant contributions to the evaluation tasks. The officer was also associated with introduction of Automatic Data Handling systems. He was instrumental in formulating the operational requirements in the Indian context and translation of these requirements into detailed hardware and software requirements for indigenous development of the same. He has continuously associated with the project at Air HQs and subsequently at Ministry of Defence.

Officer's contribution to the design and development of the display systems and evaluation of methods for testing of software, developed for operational air force defence application, is laudable.

As Chief Technical Officer of an operational radar station he contributed significantly in solving the large number of technical teething problems and operation of the first indigenous manufactured THD radar in the Air Force. Since 1981, the officer is serving as a Senior Project Engineer at Radar and Communication Project Officer. During his tenure the workload increased considerably due to simultaneous installation of the static radar at more than one location and the introduction of Mobile PSM33 radar into the Air Force, which he managed creditably.

Group Captain Manakkal Narayanan Amrithalingam VM has, thus, rendered distinguished service of an exceptional order.