The full form of IPKF is Indian Peace Keeping Force. Between 1987 and 1990, the Indian military force ran a peacekeeping mission in Sri Lanka under the name Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF). It was established under the 1987 Indo-Sri Lankan Accord, which sought to end the conflict between the Sri Lankan military and militant Sri Lankan Tamil organisations like the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
The IPKF's primary objective was to disarm all violent organisations, not just the LTTE. A short while later, an interim administrative council was established. These were the obligations outlined in the Indo-Sri Lankan Accord, signed at Rajiv Gandhi's request as Indian Prime Minister. Rajiv Gandhi took decisive action to push through this agreement in light of the intensification of the violence in Sri Lanka and the influx of refugees into India. According to the conditions of the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord, the IPKF was admitted into Sri Lanka at the request of Sri Lankan President J. R. Jayewardene.
At its height, the IPKF deployed four divisions with about 80,000 soldiers, including one mountain division (4th), three infantry divisions (36th, 54th, and 57th), and supporting arms and services. The IPKF was originally a reinforced division with limited naval and air forces. IPKF operations at their height of operational deployment also included significant portions of the Indian Paramilitary Force and Indian Special Forces. Sri Lanka was the Indian Navy Commandos' first active operation area. The IPKF's primary deployment areas were in northern and eastern Sri Lanka. After leaving Sri Lanka, the IPKF changed its designation to the 21st Corps, relocated its headquarters around Bhopal, and became the Indian Army's quick reaction force.
Early in the 1990s, under President Premadasa's leadership, the Sri Lankan government proposed the notion of a war memorial to those IPKF soldiers who died while serving in the peacekeeping mission. In 2008, the memorial was ultimately built in Sri Jayawardenapura Kotte, a suburb of Colombo. On a black marble slab, 1200 dead soldiers' names are etched. On August 15, 2010, the first official memorial service took place, and Ashok Kantha, the Indian High Commissioner to Sri Lanka, laid a wreath in memory of the deceased. Indian ex-servicemen who took part in the conflict have criticised the absence of a Sri Lankan government representative. India built a military memorial in Bhopal later that year to remember the IPKF. In June 2015, a restored memorial honouring IPKF soldiers was opened in Palaly, Jaffna. On a wall at the memorial, 33 people's names who perished in operations in the Northern Province between 1987 and 1990 are listed.
India was the first to send an entirely female contingent to a UN peacekeeping mission in 2007. To strengthen the capabilities of the Liberian police, the Formed Police Unit in Liberia provided round-the-clock security and carried out night patrols in the nation's capital, Monrovia.
India currently ranks fourth among nations that send troops, with more than 6,700 of its soldiers and police committed to UN peacekeeping missions.
Bangladesh is the largest country with the highest UN peacekeeping force, with 6447.
Since the beginning of the UN, India has contributed the most troops. India has taken part in 49 peacekeeping missions, contributing more than 1,95,000 troops in all, along with a sizable number of police officers.
One of the oldest UN peacekeeping operations is UNFICYP. It was established in 1964 to stop further conflict on the island between the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot populations and to restore things to normal.