[1] He then began pursuing a BA degree at BHU but dropped out in the last year due to his successful results in the Officer Cadre Selection Examination for the Royal Nepalese Army.

[citation needed] He completed his training and was commissioned into the Royal Nepalese Army in the rank of second lieutenant on 22 July 1955.

At the time, the then Lieutenant Rana was the second officer in the Royal Nepalese Army to have received training from Sandhurst.

[5] After being promoted to captain in 1962, he underwent further training at the Nepalese Military Academy which at that time was based in Nagarkot.

[4] In 1965, he left for Staff College training to Germany to join the Führungsakademie der Bundeswehr in Hamburg.

At the start of his tenure, he completed his parachuting training course which was facilitated by the instructors of the Israel Defense Force.

[4] By the early 1970s about nine thousand Khampa fighters, Tibetan tribesmen resisting Chinese authority, had crossed over the border to the remote Nepalese district of Mustang.

[8] In addition to carrying out illegal military activity, the Khampa fighters had been pillaging, plundering and killing members of the local communities.

[7] Consequently, a joint agreement between the Nepalese and Chinese governments was signed, with the common objective of disarming the Khampa fighters.

[9] Before the deployment of the entire taskforce, the then Lieutenant Colonel Rana led a small reconnaissance team to gather military intelligence in order to formulate the procedure of disarmament.

The main battle group of the task force was based around the Shree Shreenath Battalion, which was under the command of Rana.

[9] Whilst Rana was able to dismantle all the camps, recover large quantities of weaponry and capture a number of Khampa fighters, Gey-Wangdi was able to escape.

Rana was awarded the Kirtimaya Nepal Shreepad for "his effective planning, efficient execution and distinguished field command during the operation".

[citation needed][2] In 1978, the Royal Nepalese Army deputed Rana to work in the headquarters of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon as Chief Operations Officer.

[11][1] The UNIFL had been set up by the United Nations in response to the South Lebanon conflict which took place the same year.

Rana's tenure as COO saw the Tyre District, a designated UN area, being infiltrated and occupied by eighty Palestine Liberation Organization fighters.

[11] This destabilised the military and political situation, as Israel had only recently withdrawn troops from Lebanon on the condition that the PLO would follow suit.

[11] Rana responded by placing various peacekeeping units in positions around the Tyre District and surrounding the infiltrators.

He personally led the negotiations with the PLO fighters and their leaders, including Yasser Arafat, who were based in the surrounding regions.

[11] When they met in person at the UN Headquarters in New York, Waldheim offered Rana a tenure extension in lieu of his effective leadership of the UNIFL.

[4] During the Third SAARC Summit[broken anchor] held in November 1987, as COAS he was in-charge of the overall security, logistics and administration.

[4] In late ‘89 and early ‘90, protests broke out in Kathmandu and in other parts of Nepal in support of a multi-party democratic system.

[20] In an effort to deescalate the situation, Rana ordered units of the Army to move into the centre of Kathmandu.

[19] In the new system of governance, King Birendra became a constitutional monarch with a large amount of political power transferring to the elected representatives.

[36] Rana believed that in trying to gain political power, the democratic parties had compromised on national interests.