Lt Gen ID Verma

General Verma was the Commandant of the School of Signals, Mhow, when I attended the Young Officers’ Course commencing in January 1958. I served under the General again, when he was SO-in-C and I was posted as the first GSO II in the newly formed Signals 9, during the mid 1960s.

It was a pleasure to work at the Directorate during that time, when innovations and new practices were coming in, enabling the Corps of Signals to take the lead in the introduction of computerised procedures into various functions at Army HQ – all managed with such finesse, by the SO-in-C, in the face of strong competition from other quarters!

I have fond memories of those times– of General Verma’s benign hand on the tiller as we progressed from strength to strength, culminating in the establishment of the EDP Centre at Signals Enclave, with the late Brigadier Sandy Sunderam as the first Commandant.

My wife, Major (Dr) Helen Diwan, as she then was, also knew General and Mrs Verma well, as her patients. She used to be the MO at the Armed Services MI Room, in New Delhi, during the mid to late 1960s.

We were very saddened to learn of the passing of Lt General I D Verma earlier today, 30th October 2009. We understand bereavement in the family only too well! Helen was widowed in 1964 when her husband, the late Major Mohan Diwan, was killed in Nagaland – and, more recently, in August 2009, we lost our son-in-law to a sudden and massive heart attack.

Helen and I offer Mrs Verma our most sincere condolences.
Major Ossie Pereira (Retd)