Race for top Intelligence Bureau and RAW jobs begins

New Delhi: Two of the most coveted positions in Indian Intelligence will be thrown open this December. Given the security climate in India, the position of Director of  Intelligence Bureau and Secretary of RAW assume much more importance. The terms for both the DIB and Secretary, RAW are for two years and unlike the CBI Director, the security and Intelligence apparatus bosses are political appointees.

Empirical evidence suggests that since 1988, over 6,200 men, mostly from the Army, have been killed in anti-terrorist and low intensity conflict operations ranging from terrorism to insurgencies across Jammu and Kashmir and the North-Eastern states.

This casualty figure  exceeds the number of soldiers killed in any of the major wars India has fought so far. Two men are considered shoo-ins for the top jobs. Senior IPS officer Rajiv Jain, who was in the news in July 2015 for being upgraded to the apex pay scale, is being considered a certainty for the Director Intelligence Bureau job.

Serving as Special Director in the Intelligence Bureau, he was given apex pay scale of Rs 80,000, thus removing an anomaly in his salary. The Appointments Committee of Cabinet had approved a home ministry proposal for granting the apex pay scale to Jain, a 1980 batch Indian Police Service officer, with prospective effect.

For India’s external spy wing — Research & Analysis Wing — 1981 batch IPS officer Anil Kumar Dhasmana — who is already parked in the Cabinet Secretariat as a special secretary is considered the odds on favourite.

He is expected to superannuate on October 31, 2017, but if he gets the job, his term will end on December 31, 2018. The RAW and the IB have in the recent past done significant work in breaking the back of the fundamental Islamic and jihadi networks.