Ajit Doval

Ajit Kumar Doval (born 20 January 1945) is the National Security Advisor (NSA) of India to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

He was Intelligence Bureau (IB) chief and Indian Police Service (IPS) officer from Kerala cadre.

Doval was born in 1945 in Ghiri Banelsyun village in Pauri Garhwal in the erstwhile United Provinces, now in Uttarakhand.

Doval's father, Major G. N. Doval, was an officer in the Indian Army.

He received his early education at the Ajmer Military School in Ajmer, Rajasthan.

He graduated with a master's degree in economics from the Agra University in 1967.

Doval joined the Indian Police Service (IPS) in 1968 in the Kerala cadre as the ASP of Kottayam district.

He was posted in north-east India.

He was a spy of IB, lived in Pakistan for seven years and did espionage.

He was actively involved in anti-insurgency operations in Punjab.

He has the experience of being involved in the termination of all 15 hijackings of Indian Airlines aircraft from 1971 to 1999.

In the headquarters, he headed IB's operations wing for over a decade and was founder Chairman of the Multi Agency Centre (MAC), as well as of the Joint Task Force on Intelligence (JTFI).

Doval worked in Thalassery, Kerala, for a few months in 1972, before joining the central service.

His successful operation as a spy and intelligence head includes Operation Black Thunder 1988, Rescue of 46 Indian national in Iraq, 2015's Operation versus Nagaland militants with India army, to sabotage terror organisation PFI and many more.

He was the founder director of the right of centre leaning think tank Vivekananda International Foundation (VIF), before appointment as NSA.

In 1988 during Operation Black Thunder, he infiltrated in Golden temple posing as an ISI agent, did espionage on Khalistani separatists, Doval gathered information about their weapons and made maps of their positions, he became an important member in their group gave wrong advices to them to sabotaged, it helped National Security Guards (NSG) to win Golden Temple.

He played a role in intelligence for Sikkim's merger with India.

He was trained under M. K. Narayanan, the third National Security Advisor of India for a brief period in counterterrorism operations.

He was part of the team which sent to Kandahar, Afghanistan for negotiations to release passengers of hijacked aeroplane IC-814.

He was later appointed on the post of, director of the Intelligence Bureau.

He previously served as the director of the IB in 2004–05, after working for a decade as the head of its operation wing.

He worked as an undercover spy of IB for one year in Pakistan then 6 years as an officer in Indian high commission in Islamabad.

He spent most part of his career as a spy of IB.

Doval retired in January 2005 as Director, Intelligence Bureau.

It was founded in December 2009.

In December 2009, he became the founding Director of the Vivekananda International Foundation (VIF), a public policy think tank set up by the Vivekananda Kendra.

Doval has remained actively involved in the discourse on national security in India.

Besides writing editorial pieces for several leading newspapers and journals, he has delivered lectures on India's security challenges and foreign policy objectives at several renowned government and non-governmental institutions, security think-tanks in India and abroad.

In 2009 and 2011 he co-wrote two reports on "Indian Black Money Abroad in Secret Banks and Tax Havens", with others, leading in the field as a part of the task force constituted by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

In 2012, IB eyed on him due to then ruling party Congress's suspicions on Doval and his think tank VIF with the doubts that he and VIF were the brains behind Ramdev and Anna Hazare led anti-corruption movement, which generated anger against government.

Many members of VIF got appointed to top government positions after BJP came into power.

In recent years, he has delivered guest lectures on strategic issues at IISS, London, Capitol Hill, Washington DC, Australia-India Institute, University of Melbourne, National Defence College, New Delhi and the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration, Mussoorie.

Doval has also spoken internationally at global events, citing the ever-increasing need of co-operation between the major established and emerging powers of the world.

On 30 May 2014, Doval was appointed as India's fifth National Security Advisor.

In June 2014, Doval facilitated the return of 46 Indian nurses who were trapped in a hospital in Tikrit, Iraq, following the capture of Mosul by ISIL.

The alleged 2016 Surgical strike on Pakistan was part of Ajit Doval's 'offensive defence strategy'.

Though, Pakistan rejected India's claim, and said that Indian troops did not cross the Line of Control and had only skirmished with Pakistani troops at the border.

Doval was one of the seven persons who knew about India's classified 2019 Balakot airstrike, including Indian Navy, army, airforce chiefs and prime minister Narendra Modi.

After Pakistan based terrorist attacked convoy of CRPF by car bomb in Pulwama and martyred 40, India airforce claimed an alleged airstrike on terrorist bases in Pakistan.

Doval was awake that whole night with dignitaries in the war room.