The cradle of future officers for all three wings of the country’s armed forces, National Defence Academy (NDA) is celebrating its diamond jubilee this year.

The celebrations will culminate with a reunion of alumni from December 6 to 8 at the sprawling 6,000 acre campus of the academy and is expected to be attended by the President of India, Defence Minister and other senior army officials.

The president is expected to release a commemorative stamp on the occasion. "The NDA has trained cadets from 23 other countries and we have invited alumni from there to attend the function," Air Marshal T S Randhawa, Commandant of NDA, said.

The institute, the first in the world set up to train officer cadets of all three armed forces, has trained over 30,000 men since its inception, he said.

The celebrations which kick started earlier this year with a desert safari, where cadets covered over 6,000 km on road, will also have students undertaking an Air expedition and a sailing expedition to four countries.

The institute has also been interacting with other military academies through the years and the training imparted at the NDA has been found to be among the best, Randhawa said.

"From the autumn term of 2008 we also plan to lay more emphasis on service training to produce the best product for the next stage," he said.

Presently service training, related to the armed force in which cadets plan to enter, is for six months in the last semester of the three-year-long course prior to entering the respective military academy.