India overhauls military recruitment, seeking younger troops

India's military is overhauling its recruitment process for personnel below officer rank, aiming to deploy fitter, younger troops on its front lines, many of them on shorter contracts of at most four years, defence officials said on Tuesday.

India, which shares a heavily militarised border with Pakistan and is involved in a high-altitude Himalayan stand-off with China, has one of the world's largest armed forces with some 1.38 million personnel.

Soldiers have been recruited by the army, navy and the air force separately and typically enter service for a period of up to 17 years for the lowest ranks.

Under the new system, men and women between the ages of 17-and-a-half and 21 will be brought into the armed forces, many of them for a maximum four-year tenure.

A total of 46,000 soldiers will be recruited this year on four-year contracts with a quarter expected to be kept on at the end of that term, the government said.

"This scheme will strengthen the country's security and provide our youth an opportunity for military service," Defence Minister Rajnath Singh told reporters in New Delhi, where he was joined by the three service chiefs.

Military officials said the new system, called Agnipath, meaning "path of fire" in Hindi, would help bring down the average age of the armed forces.

In the Indian army, the largest of its three services, the average age would drop from 32 to 26, its chief, General Manoj Pande, said.

"A more youthful profile will help train troops more easily in newer technologies, and their health and fitness levels will be much better," Singh said, adding that employers would benefit from skilled workers once they left the armed forces.