Ajit Doval was on Thursday re-appointed as India's national security advisor, the government said. The appointments committee of the cabinet also re-appointed PK Mishra as the Principal Secretary to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
With PM Narendra Modi reappointing Dr P K Mishra as Principal Secretary to PM and Ajit Doval as National Security Advisor, the two retired bureaucrats have become the longest-serving principal advisors to the Prime Minister.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi with Ajit Doval and PK Mishra
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While Dr Mishra will be handling administrative matters and appointments in the PMO, Doval will be handling national security, military affairs and intelligence.
A 1968 batch IPS officer, Doval brings the rare combination of strategic thinking and operational planning to the PM. He is a renowned counter terrorsim expert and an expert on nuclear issues.
Dr P K Mishra is a retired 1972 batch officer, who has been with PM Modi for the past decade after he retired as Agriculture Secretary to GOI.
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Both Dr Mishra and NSA Doval are most trusted by PM Modi as the two have been associated with him before he took over as NDA's PM in 2014. Despite their expertise the two keep a very low profile with NSA Doval totally out of media and interviews.
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Both Dr Mishra and NSA Doval are most trusted by PM Modi as the two have been associated with him before he took over as NDA's PM in 2014. Despite their expertise the two keep a very low profile with NSA Doval totally out of media and interviews.
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NSA Doval is PM Modi's key interlocutor in the neighborhood and with P-5 and handles India's external intelligence RA&W for the PM. Doval is a classic spymaster with experience in Pakistan, Afghanistan and close links in the Middle East.
NSA Ajit Doval has been Prime Minister Narendra Modi's points person in countering the PLA aggression in Doklam plateau in 2017 and in East Ladakh in 2020. He is also India's special representative for resolving the boundary issue with China.
As Ajit Doval has served in Punjab as IB's operational chief, and in Kashmir as additional director, the NSA has first hand experience of Pakistan's nefarious plans in both sensitive areas. He has also handled Khalistani extremism while serving in London and Pakistani jihad while serving in Islamabad.
Shishir Gupta is Executive Editor at Hindustan Times and one of India's top journalists covering national security, strategic affairs, foreign policy and geopolitics. Over the past three decades, he has extensively reported on India's military, diplomatic and security landscape, covering every major conflict and national security challenge, from the 1999 Kargil War and the 2020 East Ladakh standoff to Operation Sindoor in 2025. He has also covered major terror attacks, including the IC-814 hijacking, the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and the 2025 Pahalgam terror strike, along with numerous Pakistan-backed terrorist incidents in the Kashmir Valley and across India. He has reported on national and state elections for more than three decades. A recognised authority on strategic affairs, Gupta has covered India's nuclear programme since the Pokhran-II (Shakti series) tests in May 1998 and has written extensively on global nuclear issues, Indian diplomacy and the country's expanding global outreach. He has also reported widely on international conflicts and terrorism, with a special focus on the Indian subcontinent. Gupta has interviewed Prime Minister Narendra Modi more than four times, including Modi's first interview with the print media after becoming Prime Minister in May 2014. His other interviews include three with the Dalai Lama, as well as conversations with Benjamin Netanyahu, Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath, S. Jaishankar, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal. He is the author of Indian Mujahideen: The Enemy Within (Hachette, 2011) and Himalayan Face-off: Chinese Assertion and Indian Riposte (Hachette, 2014). He was awarded the Chevening-Wolfson Joint Scholarship at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, UK, in 1998 and participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) of the US State Department in 2006. He received the Ben Gurion Prize from Israel in 2011 and the K. Subrahmanyam Prize for Strategic Studies in 2015 from the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA). Since 2024, he has hosted Point Blank, Hindustan Times' weekly YouTube show on global geopolitics.
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Home/India News/With Ajit Doval, PK Mishra appointments, PM Narendra Modi opts for loyalty and experience
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