The Centre has appointed Vice Admiral Dinesh K Tripathi as the next Chief of the Naval Staff.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Vice Admiral Dinesh Tripathi.
He will take charge on April 30 after present Naval chief Admiral R Hari Kumar retires from service.
{{^htLoading}} {{/htLoading}}
Born on May 15, 1964, Tripathi is an alumnus of Sainik School Rewa and National Defence Academy, Khadakwasla. He was commissioned into the executive branch of the Indian Navy in 1985.
A communication and electronic warfare specialist, Tripathi served on frontline warships of the Navy as signal communication officer and electronic warfare officer and later as the executive officer and principal warfare officer of the guided missile destroyer INS Mumbai.
Vice Admiral Dinesh K Tripathi’s Sea Commands include INS Vinash, Kirch and Trishul. During his long and distinguished service spanning nearly 39 years, he has also held various important operational and staff appointments, which include fleet operations officer of the Western Fleet at Mumbai, director of naval operations, principal director network centric operations and principal director naval plans at New Delhi.
{{^htLoading}} {{/htLoading}}
{{^usCountry}}
On promotion to the rank of rear admiral, he served as assistant chief of naval staff (policy and plans) at NHQ and as the flag officer commanding the eastern fleet.
{{/usCountry}}
{{#usCountry}}
On promotion to the rank of rear admiral, he served as assistant chief of naval staff (policy and plans) at NHQ and as the flag officer commanding the eastern fleet.
{{/usCountry}}
He has also served as the commandant of the prestigious Indian Naval Academy in Kerala's Ezhimala. He was the director general of Naval Operations from July 2020 till May 2021.
Tripathi has undergone courses at Signal School, Kochi, Defence Services Staff College, Wellington, Naval Higher Command Course, Karanja and Naval Command College at the United States Naval War College.
He has also been awarded the Param Vishist Seva Medal (PVSM), the Ati Vishist Seva Medal (AVSM) and the Nao Sena Medal (NSM)
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.
Get the latest India News, breaking headlines and real-time updates from across the country. Stay informed about politics, government policies, crime, weather and major national developments.
Get the latest India News, breaking headlines and real-time updates from across the country. Stay informed about politics, government policies, crime, weather and major national developments.
Home/India News/Vice Admiral Dinesh Tripathi to be next chief of naval staff
{{^htLoading}}
Advertisement
{{/htLoading}}
SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON
{{#usCountry}}{{/usCountry}}
Hindustantimes wants to start sending you push notifications. Click allow to subscribe
