Aide-de-camp
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An aide-de-camp is a personal assistant or secretary to a person of high rank, usually a senior military, police or government officer, or to a member of a royal family or a head of state.
Aide-de-camp Colonel Jean-Claude Cloutier with Lise Thibault, lieutenant governor of Quebec in 2006
Royal Canadian Navy shoulder boards worn by honorary aides-de-camp to the lieutenant governors of British Columbia (left) Quebec (centre), and New Brunswick (right)
Jakaya Kikwete, president of Tanzania, with his aide-de-camp (right) at Walter Reed Army Research Institute in May 2009
The Chief of the Army Staff (COAS) is a statutory office held by the professional head of the Indian Army (IA), the land forces branch of the Indian Armed Forces. Customarily held by a four-star general officer, the COAS is the senior-most operational officer of the IA, tasked with the roles of overseeing the overall functioning of the force during peace and wartime, committing to the preparation-cum-maintenance of the force's operational effectiveness and defending the nation's territorial integrity-cum-sovereignty. Also a permanent member of the Chiefs of Staff Committee (COSC) and the National Security Council (NSC), the COAS also bears the responsibility of advising the nation's civilian leadership i.e., the Government of India on all matters privy to the IA.
The South Block, Central Secretariat, New Delhi - the station of the IHQ of MoD (Army), where the COAS is seated.
Image: General Sir Francis Robert Roy Bucher
Image: General K. M. Cariappa