The government of India has been mulling over to introduce a new norm for those seeking government jobs for a long time now. A five-year mandatory military service could be a compulsory yardstick for aspirants seeking to bag a government job. The following proposal was put forward by the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence to address the shortcomings in personnel in the armed forces.

A lot of countries across the globe have enforced this norm for a long time now. There are over 32 countries in the world who has this compulsory norm of enrolling themselves in a military service.

There are different permutations and combinations followed by different countries. In some countries, the enrolment in military service is compulsory for both men and women, whereas in some countries only men have to follow this requisite norm.

Conscription systems are followed in different parts of the world. Conscription means a compulsory enlistment of an individual in a national service, often in military service. We, at LatestLY, bring to you a list of countries which has been using these conscription systems for a long time now.

List of countries with both, compulsory and voluntary military service:

Bermuda Colombia Mauritania Thailand
Burundi Kuwait Singapore Venezuela
Cape Verde Mali Sweden United States

List of countries with selective conscription:

Benin Cape Verde Chad Equatorial Guinea
Guinea-Bissau Mali Mexico Niger
Senegal Taiwan Togo Vietnam
Central African Republic

Some countries do have an option of selecting amongst civilian, unarmed, or non-combat services. The list of such countries are as follows:

Angola Austria Belarus Cyprus Denmark
Estonia Finland Iran Mexico Norway
Paraguay Russia Switzerland Israel Sweden

List of countries where people must be in military service for a period of a year or less:

Algeria Bolivia Brazil Colombia
Cyprus Ecuador Greece Guatemala
Kazakhstan Moldova Mongolia Paraguay
Qatar Russia Sweden Taiwan
Tunisia Turkey Uzbekistan United Arab Emirates
Estonia

List of countries where military service is limited to a period of 18 months:

Azerbaijan Benin Cambodia
Cote d’Ivoire Egypt Georgia
Kuwait Laos

List of countries where citizens must be in military service mandatorily for more than 18 months:

Armenia Angola Central African Republic Chad
Cuba Eritrea Equatorial Guinea Guinea
Guinea-Bissau Iran Israel North Korea
South Korea Kyrgyzstan Libya Mali
Mauritania Mozambique Myanmar Niger
Sao Tome and Principe Senegal Singapore Syria
Sudan Tajikistan Thailand Turkmenistan
Togo United Arab Emirates Vietnam Yemen

List of countries where it is compulsory for women to serve in military service:

Cape Verde Chad Eritrea Israel
Norway North Korea China Sweden

The following step of mandatory training in the military service comes at the backdrop of shortage of personnel in Indian armed forces (Army, Air Force, and Navy). It was the Ministry of Defence (MoD), who had earlier proposed the following mandatory norm.

The Government of India remains to be the largest employer in the country, with 43 lakh employees. However, the fact remains that the deficit in the armed forces is a matter of concern and the Narendra Modi-led government may put this compulsory norm to effect as the last resort.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Mar 16, 2018 12:13 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).