The government on Wednesday appointed senior IPS officers Arvind Kumar and Samant Kumar Goel chiefs of Intelligence Bureau (IB) and Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) respectively.
Kumar is considered a Kashmir expert while Goel played a key role in India’s airstrikes in Pakistan’s Balakot following the terror strike in Pulwama in February and surgical strikes after the Uri attack.
In another appointment, the government also extended by two years the service of Amitabh Kant as NITI Ayog CEO.
An order was issued by the Ministry of Personnel after the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet, headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, approved their appointments for a two-year tenure.
Kumar (59) will succeed Rajiv Jain, who will retire on June 30, while Goel will take over from Anil K Dhasmana, who will complete his tenure on June 29. Both Kumar and Goel are 1984-batch IPS officers of Assam-Meghalaya and Punjab cadres respectively.
Jain and Dhasmana were given an extension of six months last December after they completed their two-year tenure. Goel’s name had cropped up during a CBI investigation after the then CBI director Alok Kumar Verma and former special director Rakesh Asthana charged each other with corruption.
Kumar, who is Special Director in the IB, has been working with the IB since August 1991 and has also served in the Indian Embassy in Moscow.
Considered an expert on Kashmir and Naxal matters, Kumar is the second-most senior officer in the IB after Jain. He is a recipient of the President’s Police Medal for Distinguished Service.
Goel, a Special Secretary who joined the RAW in March 2001, officials said, is a man of rich experience in intelligence and operations and his experience had a big role in the success of surgical strikes and air strikes in the recent past.