emani raman retired as a decorated army officer today he is a proactive agriculturist with specialisation in food and cash crops he is the great grandson of rai bahadur emani satyanarayana one of the first few indian origin engineers in the british raj and great nephew of sir vepa ramesam the first indian origin chief justice of the former madras presidency his grandfather emani prasad rao was one of the first automobile engineers in india in an interview with venkatesh bayya of toi 50yearold raman speaks about his days in the indian army and his penchant for innovation in agriculture why and how did you join the army i was planning my career in management i came across the cds exam and appeared for it i had qualified in the written test and was called for the services selection board ssb as luck would have it i had qualified for iim calcutta and the interview for it was scheduled immediately after the ssb i went for the ssb and qualified in it i was told that i had to wait in allahabad for the medical examination i decided that a bird in hand is worth two in the bush so i left iim and joined the army in june 1988were you actively involved in antiinsurgency operationsi served in kashmir during the peak of insurgency from 1990 to 1993 being from the infantry antiinsurgency operations in kashmir valley was our main task i was actively involved in antimilitancy operations i was also involved in antimilitancy operations in manipur from 1996 to 1998 the type of insurgency there was different from what i had encountered in kashmir i was in the operations role in 2000 i was deployed with my company in udhampur and we effectively foiled infiltration of militants a few members of my troop were recommended for gallantry awards one of them earned the sena medal under my command i also served with the united nations as a peace keeper in lebanon i managed to stave off a full scale war between lebanon and israel on a number of occasions through my negotiations and defusing potential situations in time i also participated in the kargil war in 1999how many medals of honour did you wini earned the chief of the army commendation card the northern army commanders commendation card and the sena medal for gallantry i also got a certificate of appreciation from the force commander of unifil major general allan pellegrini of the french army united nations interim force in lebanonwhen did you leave the army and how is the life post retirementi quit service in 2010 due to personal reasons i went to iim ahmedabad to do my mba post retirement which actually helped me to quickly adapt to the life outside the army initially i found life quite strange and indisciplined but slowly adapted to ithow did you get interested in agriculture i had done gardening as a kid in school and had some inkling on how