Tech-savvy IPS officer Sinha new RAW chief

New Delhi, June 19

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The government today appointed 1988-batch IPS officer of Chhattisgarh cadre Ravi Sinha, known for his operational skills and considered an expert on neighbouring countries, as the new chief of India’s external spy agency RAW for a two-year tenure. Sinha (59) has had an over two-decade-long stint in the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) and is at present the second-in-command in the agency. Currently looking after the operations wing, he has been credited with making a significant progress in employing modern technology in the process of intelligence gathering.

An alumnus of Delhi’s St Stephen’s College, he will succeed Samant Goel, who completes his four-year extended stint on June 30. Sinha’s appointment comes at a time when Pakistan is politically and economically unstable, Khalistani extremism is being fanned from abroad and attempts are being made to fuel violence in the northeast, particularly Manipur.

Goel assumed the role of RAW chief in June 2019 and received two one-year extensions in 2021 and 2022. An expert on matters related to J&K, Goel is believed to have played a key role in planning the 2019 surgical strike in Pakistan’s Balakot to avenge the Pulwama terror attack in which 40 CRPF men were killed by a suicide bomber of Pakistan-based JeM.