Senior IPS officer Ravi Sinha was on Monday appointed as the new chief of the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW), India’s premier external intelligence agency, for a period of two years. He takes charge from Samant Kumar Goel whose four-year tenure as the head of the agency ends on June 30.

“The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet has approved the appointment of 59-year-old Sinha, a 1988-batch IPS officer from Chhattisgarh, who is currently Special Secretary, Cabinet Secretariat, as the Secretary R&AW for a tenure of two years from the date of assumption of the charge of post, or until further orders, whichever is earlier,” an order issued by the Ministry of Personnel and Training on Monday said.

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Who is new RAW chief Ravi Sinha?

Deputed to the R&AW around 20 years ago, Sinha, a 1988-batch IPS officer from the Chhattisgarh cadre, heads the operations wing at the agency. Currently posted as Special Secretary in the Cabinet Secretariat, Sinha has worked at different desks and is widely regarded as an expert on India’s intelligence community as an expert on India’s neighbouring nations.

Senior intelligence officials The Indian Express spoke to said that the Centre picked Sinha for the role after they found him to be a “specialist on countries in India’s immediate neighbourhood”. He has served in Jammu and Kashmir and in the Northeast. He was also posted in Bhutan, Hong Kong, China and The Hague, the officer said.

“He has vast experience in handling matters related to Pakistan, Myanmar and Kashmir apart from the Khalistan issue,” he added.

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As per another official cited by IE, Sinha has been part of different operations related to Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir, Northeast and Left-Wing Extremism in the past six years and has experience in coordinating with different state police and paramilitary forces.

He succeeds Goel who took charge as the R&AW chief in June 2019 for a two-year period, but was granted two extensions of one year each in 2021 and 2022. Goel, seen as an expert of the Kashmir issue, is believed to have played a key role in the February 2019 surgical strike in Pakistan’s Balakot.

At the R&AW, SInha is credited with infusing technology in the field of intelligence collection. A man with a proven track record in operations, Sinha’s elevation comes at a time when the country is faced with immediate challenges in the form of Sikh extremism and the ethnic strife in Manipur.