Raja Ramanna was an Indian nuclear physicist. He was the director of India's nuclear program in the late 1960s and early 1970s, which culminated in Smiling Buddha, India's first successful nuclear weapon test on 18 May 1974.
Parmeshwar Narayan Haksar was an Indian bureaucrat and diplomat, best known for his two-year stint as Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's principal secretary (1971–73). In that role, Haksar was the chief strategist and policy adviser behind his inexperienced prime minister's rise to near-absolute power in the mid-1970s. After this he was appointed deputy chairman of the Planning Commission and then the first-ever chancellor of New Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University.
The National Security Advisor is the senior official on the National Security Council of India, and the chief advisor to the Prime Minister of India on national security policy and international affairs. In 2019, the term of Ajit Doval the current NSA was extended for another 5-year term, and has been assigned the rank of a Union Cabinet Minister and ranks at the seventh position in the Indian Order of Precedence.
The National Security Council (NSC) of India is an executive government body tasked with advising the prime Minister of India on matters of national security and foreign policy. It was established by the former prime minister of India Atal Bihari Vajpayee on 19 November 1998, with Brajesh Mishra as the first National Security Advisor.
Shivshankar Menon is an Indian diplomat, who served as National Security Adviser of India under Prime Minister of India Manmohan Singh. He had previously served as the Foreign Secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs. Prior to that he was Indian High Commissioner to Pakistan, and Sri Lanka and ambassador to China and Israel. He is currently Distinguished Fellow at the Centre for Social and Economic Progress. He is also Visiting Professor of International Relations at Ashoka University.
Naresh Chandra was a 1956 batch IAS officer of Rajasthan cadre who served as the Cabinet Secretary of India, Defence Secretary of India, Home Secretary of India, Water Resources Secretary of India and Indian Ambassador to the United States. He was awarded India's second highest civilian honour the Padma Vibhushan for civil service in 2007.
Brajesh Chandra Mishra was an Indian diplomat from the Indian Foreign Service and politician, best known for serving as Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's principal secretary and India's first National Security Advisor from 1998 to 2004. He received Padma Vibhushan for his contributions.
Masood Khan is a Pakistani-Kashmiri diplomat who is currently serving as Pakistan's Ambassador to the United States. Khan also served as the 27th President of Azad Kashmir. Khan joined the Foreign Service of Pakistan in 1980. From August 2003 to March 2005, he served as the Spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Pakistan’s Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations and International Organisations in Geneva, Switzerland, from 2005 to 2008, Pakistan's Ambassador to China between September 2008 and September 2012 and as Pakistan's Permanent Representative to the United Nations, New York, between October 11, 2012 and February 7, 2015.
Ruchira Kamboj is a retired Indian Foreign Service officer of the 1987 batch, who last served as India's Permanent Representative to the United Nations from August 2022 to May 2024 until her retirement. She has previously served as High Commissioner of India to South Africa, first female Indian Ambassador to Bhutan and Ambassador/Permanent Representative of India to UNESCO, Paris.
Nirupama Menon Rao is a retired civil servant of 1973 batch Indian Foreign Service cadre who served as India's Foreign Secretary from 2009 to 2011, as well as being India's Ambassador to the United States, China and Sri Lanka during her career.
Sartaj Aziz was a Pakistani economist and strategist, who had previously served as the deputy chairman of the Planning Commission of Pakistan, member of the federal cabinet as the de facto Minister for Foreign Affairs, a Federal Senator as well as the National Security Advisor.
Dilip Sinha is an Indian diplomat and former public administrator. He served in the Indian Foreign Service from 1978 to 2014 and as chairman of the Manipur Public Service Commission, India, from 2015 to 2016. Ambassador Sinha is a public speaker on international security, Afghanistan-Pakistan-Iran and environmental diplomacy. He is the author of Legitimacy of Power: The Permanence of Five in the Security Council. The book traces the origins of international security cooperation and scrutinizes the moorings of the UN Security Council's powers in international law.
Javid Husain is a Diplomat, from the Foreign Service of Pakistan, who has had a distinguished career during which he served as the Ambassador of Pakistan to the Netherlands (1992–1995), the Republic of Korea (1995–1997) and Iran (1997–2003). During his tenure at Tehran, he was also the Pakistan Permanent Representative to the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO).
Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, better known as S. Jaishankar, is an Indian diplomat, politician and author, who is serving the thirtieth Minister of External Affairs of the Government of India since 31 May 2019. He is a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party and has been a Member of Parliament in the Rajya Sabha since 5 July 2019. He previously served as the Foreign Secretary from January 2015 to January 2018.
The foreign policy of the Modi government, also referred to as the Modi doctrine is associated with the policy initiatives made towards other states by the current government of India after Narendra Modi assumed the office of prime minister on May 26, 2014.
Surendra Singh was Cabinet Secretary in the Indian government from August 1994 to July 1996, as well as Chairman of the Civil Services of India. Prior to that he was Secretary of the former Indian Ministry of Industry.
Ali Jehangir Siddiqui is a Pakistani diplomat and entrepreneur. He has served as the Ambassador of Pakistan to the United States, as Special Assistant to the Prime Minister of Pakistan with the status of Minister of State and Pakistan's Ambassador for Foreign Investment in an honorary capacity. He has also served in various business and government advisory councils, policy institutions, and commercial entities.
Alexander Mikhailovich Kadakin was a Russian diplomat and the Russian Ambassador to India from 2009 until his death in 2017. Kadakin had earlier served as the ambassador to India between 1999 and 2004. He was a noted Indophile. Kadakin died from heart failure while in service in New Delhi in 2017. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 2018.
Harsh Vardhan Shringla is Chief Coordinator for India’s G20 Presidency in 2023. He has previously served as Foreign Secretary of India and India's Ambassador to the United States, High Commissioner to Bangladesh, and Ambassador to Thailand.
Vikram Misri is an Indian diplomat. He currently serves as the 35th Foreign Secretary of India from July 2024 onwards. Previously, he served as the Deputy National Security Advisor of India from 1 January 2022, succeeding Pankaj Saran till 14 July 2024. Whereas, he has served as the ambassador of India to China from January 2019 to December 2021.
