Senior IPS officer Ravi Sinha, an expert on neighbourhood countries and operations, was on Monday appointed as the new head of external spy agency R&AW, succeeding Samant Goel who completes his four-year stint on June 30.

According to an order issued by the Ministry of Personnel, the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet has approved the appointment of 59-year-old Sinha, a 1988 batch IPS officer from Chhatisgarh, as the Secretary RAW for a tenure of two years.

Sinha, who has had an over two-decade-long stint in the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW), is at present the second-in-command in the organisation. Before being promoted, he was looking after the operations wing.

Considered to be a specialist on countries in India's immediate neighbourhood, Sinha's appointment comes at a time when Pakistan is politically and economically unstable, Sikh extremism is being fanned from abroad and attempts are being made in the northeast to promote violence.

Sinha, an alumnus of St Stephen's College in Delhi, has served in Jammu and Kashmir, the northeast and foreign countries in the past.

His predecessor Goel was appointed R&AW chief for two years in June 2019. He was later given two extensions of one year each in 2021 and June 2022.

Goel, an expert on matters related to Jammu and Kashmir, is believed to have played a key role in planning the February 2019 surgical strike in Pakistan's Balakot.

The surgical strike was carried out to avenge the Pulwama terror attack, in which 40 Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel were killed by a suicide bomber of Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM).

In response to the attack, the Indian Air Force had struck a JeM terrorist training camp in Balakot on February 26, 2019.

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