Quick Answer: Major Navya Shekhawat is the first woman officer from the Indian Army appointed Aide-de-Camp (ADC) to the President of India. She took up the post at Rashtrapati Bhavan in the second week of July 2026, serving under President Droupadi Murmu. She’s the second woman overall in this role, after Indian Navy Lieutenant Commander Yashasvi Solanki broke the barrier first, back in May 2025.
Key Takeaways
| Detail | Information |
|---|---|
| Full title | Aide-de-Camp (ADC) to the President of India |
| Historic first | First woman Army officer to hold this post |
| Rank among women ADCs | Second overall, after Lt Cdr Yashasvi Solanki (Navy, May 2025) |
| Appointed | Second week of July 2026 |
| Serving under | President Droupadi Murmu |
| Home corps | Army Service Corps (ASC) |
| Entry route | Combined Defence Services (CDS) exam |
| Training | Officers Training Academy (OTA), Chennai |
| Commissioned | 2021, Short Service Commission (Women Non-Technical) |
| Hometown | Kerpura village, Sikar district, Rajasthan |
| Total President’s ADCs | Five — three from the Army, one each from the Navy and Air Force |
Who Is Major Navya Shekhawat?
Stand outside Rashtrapati Bhavan during any state function this year, and there’s a good chance you’ll catch her a step behind the President, back straight, timing every move to the ceremony. Nobody from the Army has held that spot as a woman before.
She stepped into the role in July 2026. Five years, more or less, is what it took her to get there, starting the way it does for most officers: with an exam.
From a Rajasthan Village to Rashtrapati Bhavan
She’s not from Delhi, or from a city with any real military-brat pedigree attached to it. Kerpura, a village in Sikar district, Rajasthan, is where her story starts. Plenty of people from that belt have gone on to serve in uniform over the years. An Army officer becoming ADC to the President, though? That hadn’t happened before, not from Sikar, not from anywhere in the state as far as records show.
The CDS exam got her in the door, the same route thousands of hopefuls attempt each year through the Union Public Service Commission. She made the merit list for the Short Service Commission’s Women Non-Technical Course, then headed off to the Officers Training Academy in Chennai, where the actual work of becoming an officer happens over months of grinding routine.
By 2021, she was commissioned into the Army Service Corps. Not the flashiest posting on paper. The ASC runs the Army’s transport, rations, fuel, the whole supply backbone that keeps a fighting force fed and moving. It’s a job built on discipline and precision rather than glamour, and if you think about it, those are exactly the qualities Rashtrapati Bhavan protocol demands too.
What Does a President’s ADC Actually Do?
There’s a tendency to think of an ADC as decoration, someone who looks sharp in photographs and not much else. That’s not really it. An ADC assists a senior figure, in this case the President, with the actual mechanics of official and ceremonial life: investitures, state banquets, military parades, visiting foreign dignitaries, and a hundred smaller logistical details that go unnoticed right up until they go wrong.
Five officers cover this job at any given time: three Army, one Navy, one Air Force. Every one of the Army seats had gone to a man until Major Shekhawat’s name came up.
First Woman ADC? Not Quite — And the Distinction Matters
Plenty of headlines this year got a little sloppy on this point, so it’s worth clearing up. Major Shekhawat is not the first woman to serve as President’s ADC. That distinction goes to the Navy Lieutenant Commander Yashasvi Solanki got there first, in May 2025. What Major Shekhawat achieved, about a year later, is narrower but still worth noting on its own: first woman from the Army specifically.
That matters for a simple reason. The Army holds three of the five ADC seats, more than double what either the Navy or Air Force gets. Officers within the Army had been watching the Navy make its move since 2025, wondering when or if their own branch would follow suit.
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The Bigger Picture
Zoom out far enough, and this appointment is really one moment in a longer story. Women first joined the Indian Army through the Short Service Commission back in 1992. For decades after that, the arrangement came with a hard ceiling short contracts, no command track, no permanent commission regardless of how an officer performed.
That changed in 2020, when the Supreme Court ruled women officers were entitled to permanent commissions. Command roles opened up. Long-term careers became possible in a way they simply weren’t before. Major Shekhawat was commissioned the year after that ruling, walking into a service that had just shifted under her feet.
What she’s done with that window is move fast. From commissioned officer to Major to one of five people standing beside the President of India, in roughly five years. That’s a quick climb by anyone’s standard, gender aside.
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Why It Matters Past the Headline
Depends who you ask, honestly. To a kid in some small Rajasthan town seeing a photo of a woman in Army uniform next to the President, it probably just looks like proof the top is reachable. To women already serving, it looks like something else: confirmation that the reforms since 2020 aren’t just sitting in a legal document somewhere, that they’re actually turning into real postings.
No single officer changes an institution on her own. But the Army had kept this particular seat male-only since Independence, and that’s no longer true. Whoever applies next for a similar role now has something to point to that didn’t exist eighteen months ago. That outlasts the news cycle around her photographs.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Major Navya Shekhawat the first woman President’s ADC in Indian history?
No. She’s the first woman Army officer in the role. The first woman overall was Lieutenant Commander Yashasvi Solanki of the Indian Navy, appointed in May 2025.
Which corps does she belong to?
The Army Service Corps (ASC), the branch handling the Army’s transport, fuel, and supply logistics.
How did she join the Army?
Through the Combined Defence Services exam, followed by training at the Officers Training Academy, Chennai, under the Short Service Commission Women Non-Technical route.
When exactly was she appointed?
Second week of July 2026.
How many ADCs does the President have?
Five: three Army, one Navy, one Air Force.
Where is she from?
Kerpura village, Sikar district, Rajasthan.
Sources
- Major Navya Shekhawat Is First Woman Army Officer on the President’s ADC Team — The Better India
- Major Navya Shekhawat, First Woman Army Officer ADC to President — Vajiram & Ravi
- Meet Rajasthan’s Major Navya Shekhawat, First Woman Army Officer to Serve as President’s ADC — The Logical Indian
- This Indian Army Officer Just Created History at Rashtrapati Bhavan — Indian Masterminds
- Major Navya Shekhawat: Trailblazing as the First Woman Indian Army Officer Appointed ADC to the President — SSBCrack
- Major Navya Shekhawat Creates History as First Female Indian Army Officer to Become President’s ADC — The Civic Code
