Dr. Kanwal Sibal is the Chairman and Advisory board of GCTC. He was the Foreign Secretary of India from July 2002- November 2003. His Diplomatic career spanning over 41 years included his ambassadorial posts in Turkey, Egypt, and Russia, among others. He has also been a member of the National Security Advisory Board. He is a regular writer on International affairs in leading dailies.
Dr. Sibal graduated from the World Information Distributed University with the scientific degree of International Doctor of Philosophy and the scientific degree of Grand Doctor of Philosophy, in June 2006. He is the First Grand Doctor of Philosophy in India. He received the title of Full Professor from the European Academy of Informatization and the World Information Distributed University-WIDU.
Throughout most of his 40-year illustrious career, General Hasnain has served in turbulent environments and hot spots. From Sri Lanka to Siachen Glacier, from the North East to Jammu & Kashmir (J&K), and in UN operations from Mozambique to Rwanda, he has seen it all in crucial appointments. He served seven tours in J&K, decorated in almost all of them and knows the J&K conflict comprehensively. He commanded the Indian Army’s Srinagar-based 15 Corps and is today one of the foremost writers and analysts on J&K, Pakistan, the Middle East and transnational extremist violence. He is a much sought-after speaker and writes for major Indian newspapers – The Times of India, The Indian Express, The Hindu, Deccan Chronicle and The Asian Age, besides being a regular participant in television debates on mainstream television. With a strong academic background from Sherwood College Nainital, St Stephen’s College Delhi, the Royal College of Defence Studies, King's College London and the Asia Pacific Centre for Security Studies, Hawaii, he has been at the forefront of encouraging the adoption of the US initiated Scholar Warrior concept in the Indian Army. He has spoken at the Lee Kuan Yew School for Public Policy, the Rajaratnam School for International Studies and the Indian Institute for South Asian Studies, all in Singapore. He has also spoken at the International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS), London. He is associated with the Vivekanand International Foundation and Centre for Joint Warfare Studies, as Distinguished Fellow and is on the Governing Council of the Indian Council of World Affairs (ICWA) and Institute of Peace & Conflict Studies (IPCS). He speaks on National Security at various military, civil services and corporate institutions with a view to enhancing India’s strategic culture. He has recently visited Iran and was at the forefront of neutralizing Pakistani influence operations in that country.
On 13 July 2018, The President of India appointed Lt Gen Hasnain as Chancellor of the Central University of Kashmir.
Gen Hasnain has six decorations awarded by the President of India and two by the Army Chief. He superannuated from the Indian Army in July 2013 after 40 years of active service.
Wing Commander Ravi Kant Sharma has been commanding the Maritime Strike Jaguar Squadron. He is a Test Pilot and a Qualified Flying Instructor with more than 2900 hours of accident-free flying, of which nearly 1400 hours are on Jaguar aircraft. An alumnus of Defence Services Staff College he has held various important appointments like Flight Commander of a Jaguar Squadron and Deputy Director at Air Headquarters.
During his tenure as Commanding Officer, the Squadron had consistently completed the command task. In every exercise that the Squadron had taken part in, it had performed extremely well. In Command Gunnery Meet, the Squadron was overall runner-up. The Directorate of Maintenance and Inspection team, which carried out a Quality Audit of the Jaguar fleet in Oct 95, had a special word of appreciation for the Squadron with respect to its maintenance practices. To cap all the achievements, the Squadron was assessed Average Plus in all three disciplines of Operations, Maintenance and Administration by the Directorate of Air Staff Inspection in Nov 95. The achievements were a direct result of the able leadership provided by Wg Cdr RK Sharma.
Wg Cdr RK Sharma is a thorough professional, with a keen eye for details. It was due to his total involvement that the operational status of the Squadron has remained very high. He ensured that the serviceability state of the aircraft in the Squadron remained consistently high to meet its various operational and training commitments.
For exceptional devotion to duty, the President is pleased to award the ‘Vayu Sena Medal’ to Wing Commander Ravi Kant Sharma.
Lt Gen Arun Kumar Sahni is a decorated, scholar – soldier, with 40 years of commissioned service in the Indian Army. In his last assignment, tenanting the second highest rank of the army, he was the General Officer Commanding-in-Chief of one of the six operational commands of the Indian Army.
His experience encompasses service in the country’s most inhospitable and conflict affected areas to battle external and internal security challenges. He has an unenviable record of being a high achiever throughout his career, starting with the ‘Sword of Honor’
and President’s Gold medal on commissioning to the Army, in 1976.In addition to his command of troops, he has been an Instructor at various Military Schools of Instruction, attended a career course with the British army at UK, was Assistant Military Attache in Russia and has been intimately involved with force structuring, op preparedness and modernization of the Indian Army. The officer has also been involved at the apex level with issues related to cyber, digitization and network enablement for the Indian Army.
The officer is known for his academic excellence and oratory skills. He is incisive with his strategic insight and understanding of internal and external security issues including the emerging international dynamics. Presently he contributes meaningfully through experience sharing and formal interface with different organizations at the operational, directional and strategic level. He is mentoring start-ups and new initiatives that are in the domain of Information Security and HR Management. He is an active participant with various think tanks on a wide range of subjects and is also a motivational speaker on
leadership.
Lieutenant General Suresh Sharma took over as Engineer-in-Chief of the Indian Army. In his capacity as Engineer-Chief, in addition to steering the Corps of Engineers, he will serve as the Principal Advisor to Chiefs of Army, Navy, Air Force and the Ministry of Defence on all matters pertaining to engineering works services, being head of Military Engineering Services (MES).
The General Officer commanded an Engineer Regiment during Operation\ Parakram and has held key operational logistics appointments in an Infantry Brigade along the Line of Control and an Infantry Division & Strike Corps in the South Western Theatre. He was assigned to the United Nations as an Advisor and served as Chief Operations Officer of the Mission in Bosnia & Herzegovina.
Within the Corps, the General Officer has commanded the Bengal Engineer Group and Centre, a premiere training institution, and tenanted the appointments of Chief Engineer (Indian Navy & Coast Guards) Mumbai Zone, Chief Engineer South Western Command and Director General Combat Engineers at the Army HQs.
Prior to taking over as the Engineer-in-Chief, he served as the 24th Director General of the Border Roads Organization (DGBR), where he provided direction and renewed impetus to number of strategic border area projects. On 26 January 2016, the General Officer was awarded the Ati Vishisht Seva Medal (AVSM) by the President of India.
Lt Gen Suresh Sharma (Retd) has been appointed Principal Advisor to the Central Board of Irrigation and Power( CBIP), a premier institution set up by the Government of India in 1927. CBIP has been rendering dedicated services to professional organizations, engineers and individuals in the country related to Power, Water Resources and Renewable Energy.
Lieutenant General Vinod Bhatia, PVSM, AVSM, SM, (Retd) superannuated after 40 years of distinguished service in the Army as the Director of General Military Operation (DGMO), one of the most important functionaries of the Army. As the DGMO, he was directly responsible for talks with his counterparts in Pakistan to ensure a sustained ceasefire, a first of its kind and was much appreciated by the National Polity. His advisory skills in the strategic arena have played an indispensable part in designing and implementing numerous policies for the Indian Army. He was instrumental in giving the much-needed focus to capability development and capacity enhancement along our Northern borders and effective management of the Line of Actual Control (LAC) and the LoC. He is a proud alumnus of Sainik School Ghorakhal and the National Defence Academy. Commissioned into the Parachute Regiment in June 1974, he is a graduate of Defence Services Staff College, College of Defence Management and the prestigious National Defence College. He has wide-ranging experience in command, staff and instructional appointments. His higher command assignments include that of Mountain Brigade in North Bengal, Infantry Division on the Line of Control and an operational Corps along the India-VChina border. His operational experience is varied, as he has actively been part of Ops Rakshak, Vijay, Rhino, Hifazat, Orchid, Falcon, all clear and Cactus(Maldives). He has written on wide- ranging subjects such as Regional and National Security, International Relations, Special Operations, Human Resources Development, Human Rights, Psychological & Information Warfare and Operational Philosophy in the course of his career and post superannuation. General has also vas experience in Disaster Management. As the Corps commander, he was responsible for the planning, deployment of resources and execution of rescue, relief and rehabilitation operations during the Sikkim Earthquake of 2011.
Lt Gen Vinod Bhatia was the colonel of the Parachute capabilities. He was also the Co-Chair of the India-US Executive Steering Group on Defence Cooperation.
Mr. G. K. Pillai retired from the IAS as Union Home Secretary in 2011. He is a distinguished alumni of IIT Madras.
He worked for the State Government of Kerala, holding various positions including that of District Collector, Quilon, Special Secretary Industries, Secretary Health and Principal Secretary to the Chief Minister.
In the Government of India, he has worked in the Ministries of Defence, Surface Transport, Home and Commerce. He was chairman of Board of Approvals for SEZ, chief negotiator for India at the WTO and Secretary Commerce, Government of India.
An accomplished academician, Dr Kavita A Sharma has been an active contributor to the cause of higher education through her teaching, publications and the institutions she has been associated with. Dr Kavita Sharma started teaching in 1971 in Delhi University’s Hindu College and became its Principal in 1998 and served there till 2008 when she took up another challenging assignment as Director of India International Centre, New Delhi.
She has published several books including Internationalization of Education, Sixty Years of University Grants Commission, Hindu College, Delhi – A People’s Movement and The Windmills of the Mind. Her research papers on a wide range of topics, including higher education, language, immigration and identity, culture and women, have made their way into many reputed national and international publications.
Dr Sharma holds a PhD Degree in English from the University of Delhi and an LLM degree from the University of British Columbia, Canada. A Fulbright Fellow, she was conferred the Indira Gandhi Sadbhavana Award by the National Integration and Economic Council in 2005.
Widely travelled around the world, Dr Sharma had also been an Honorary Visiting Lecturer at Tokyo’s Women’s Christian College and the University of Indonesia. She is associated with many professional organizations including the English Association, Indian Association of Canadian Studies, Indian Law Institute and Indian History Congress. She has been the Founder and President of the Parent’s Forum for Meaningful Education.
She was then Director, India International Centre, New Delhi (2008-2014). She is a Life Member of several prestigious associations and institutes including the Indian Association of Canadian Studies, Indian Law Institute, Association of Comparative Literature and Indian History Congress. She has been a recipient of Indo-Canadian Shastri Fellowships twice (1991-92 and 2002-2003) and has also been awarded the Fulbright Fellowship New Century Scholar (2007-08) for research on ‘Higher Education in the 21st Century: Access and Equity by the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board. She has several published books to her credit, including, Windmills of the Mind (2006), Queens of Mahabharata (2006) and Birds, Beasts, Men and Nature in Mahabharata (2008), Internationalization of Higher Education: An Aspect of India’s Foreign Relations (2008), Sixty Years of the University Grants Commission; Establishment, Growth and Evolution (2013), Hindu College, Delhi – A People’s Movement (2014), National University of Educational Planning and Administration, A Transformational Journey, NUEPA (2015). Apart from that she has edited several books and contributed chapters to them. She has also contributed extensively to research journals, and participates regularly in seminars and conferences in India and abroad on subjects ranging from higher education, gender issues, diaspora and Mahabharata.
Suhasini Haidar is the Diplomatic Editor of The Hindu, one of India’s oldest and most respected national dailies, regularly writing on Foreign policy issues. Prior to this, Suhasini was Foreign Affairs editor and prime time anchor for India’s leading 24-hr English news channel CNN-IBN (2005-2014), where she presented the signature show “WorldView with Suhasini Haidar”, and Correspondent for CNN International’s New Delhi bureau before that. In 2015, she was the recipient of the most prestigious Indian print journalism ‘Prem Bhatia’ award, and has won a series of awards for her work in Television as well.
Over the course of her 26-year reporting career, Suhasini has covered the most challenging stories & conflicts from the most diverse regions including Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Libya, Lebanon and Syria. In India, she has covered the foreign affairs beat for over a decade and her domestic assignments include political profiles and in-depth reportage from conflict zones including Kashmir, where she was injured in a bomb blast in 2000.
Suhasini Haidar worked with CNN International from 1995-2005, regularly reporting from India, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. She was part of the CNN team that won the Columbia-Dupont Broadcast Journalism Award in 2005 for coverage of the tsunami in India, and worked for CNN.com in New York for a month during its 9/11 coverage.
Suhasini began her career in journalism as an intern at CNN’s United Nation’s bureau in New York in 1994, after which she joined CNN New Delhi bureau as a producer in April 1995.
Suhasini earned a Bachelor's degree at Lady Shriram College in Delhi, and then completed her Masters in Broadcast Journalism at Boston University’s College of Communication, USA. She lives in Delhi with her husband Nadim and her two daughters Ava Mumtaz and Maya Mehr.
Navika Kumar – India’s leading Journalist with over 2.5 decades of experience in Print and Television. She is among few journalists who have made their imprint in both political as well as in business reporting. Kumar has been credited for investigating and breaking some of the most high- impact stories.
As Group Editor of TIMES NETWORK & Editor-in-Chief of TIMES NOW NAVBHART, Navika Kumar plays a pivotal part in the overall affairs of Channels. Besides directing the Political reporting strategy for all of Times Network’s Channels, she is also the Editorial Head for all Policy/ Political themed properties of Times Influence. She is also responsible for strategic decision making and credible dissemination of news flow on a daily basis. As an entrepreneurial Manager for the Network, her contribution goes beyond Content and she is a critical member of the Network Top Management team.
She hosts the Prime Time Debate Show – “The Newshour@9” every weeknight and an interview show – “Frankly Speaking with Navika Kumar” over weekends on Times Now. And Prime Time Debate Show “Sawaal Public Ka” on Times Now Navbharat.
