Air Marshal Sreedhara Panicker Radha Krishnan Nair (born 7 July 1958),

PVSM Param Vishisht Seva Medal (PVSM) (IAST: ) is a military award of India. It was constituted in 1960 and since then it is awarded in recognition to peace-time service of the most exceptional order and may be awarded posthumously. All ranks of the ...

, AVSM, VM,

Mention in Dispatches To be mentioned in dispatches (or despatches, MiD) describes a member of the armed forces whose name appears in an official report written by a superior officer and sent to the high command, in which their gallant or meritorious action in the face ...

is a retired officer of

Indian Air Force The Indian Air Force (IAF) is the air arm of the Indian Armed Forces. Its complement of personnel and aircraft assets ranks third amongst the air forces of the world. Its primary mission is to secure Indian airspace and to conduct aerial w ...

who was Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief (AOC-in-C), Training Command of the

from 1 September 2015 to 31 July 2018. He succeeded Air Marshal Ramesh Rai.

Early life and education

Nair was born on 7 July 1958 at

Thiruvananthapuram Thiruvananthapuram (; ), also known by its former name Trivandrum (), is the capital of the Indian state of Kerala. It is the most populous city in Kerala with a population of 957,730 as of 2011. The encompassing urban agglomeration populati ...

, Kerala. He is an alumnus of

Loyola School, Thiruvananthapuram , motto_translation = ''Greater''; ''More'' , type = Private primary and secondary school , gender = Boys , established = , founder = Fr. Joseph Edamaram, SJ , rel ...

and National Defence Academy, Pune.

Career

Nair was commissioned into the transport stream of the Indian Air Force in June 1980. He has clocked over 7200 hours of flying and has experience on many different types of aircraft's including

Otter Otters are carnivorous mammals in the subfamily Lutrinae. The 13 extant otter species are all semiaquatic, aquatic, or marine, with diets based on fish and invertebrates. Lutrinae is a branch of the Mustelidae family, which also includes wea ...

Avro AVRO, short for Algemene Vereniging Radio Omroep ("General Association of Radio Broadcasting"), was a Dutch public broadcasting association operating within the framework of the Nederlandse Publieke Omroep system. It was the first public broad ...

An-32 The Antonov An-32 (NATO reporting name: Cline) is a turboprop twin-engined military transport aircraft. Design and development The An-32 is essentially a re-engined An-26. It is designed to withstand adverse weather conditions better than the s ...

, Dornier and IL-76. He held several key operational and administrative appointments at various stages of his service including Chief Operations Officer of a Transport Base; Commanding Officer of a strategic Air lift Squadron; Director Operations (Transport) at Air Headquarters; Air Officer Commanding of AFS Chandigarh; Assistant Chief of the Air Staff (Personnel Airmen and Civilians); Assistant Chief of the Air Staff (Transport & Helicopter) and Senior Air Staff Officer of Training Command. He has also been extensively involved in many military operations including Operation Pawan,

Operation Cactus Operation or Operations may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media * ''Operation'' (game), a battery-operated board game that challenges dexterity * Operation (music), a term used in musical set theory * ''Operations'' (magazine), Multi-Man ...

, Operations Parakram and

Operation Safed Sagar Operation Safed Sagar ( hi, ऑपरेशन सफेद सागर, lit. "Operation White Ocean") was the code name assigned to the Indian Air Force's role in acting jointly with the Indian Army during the 1999 Kargil war that was aim ...

. As the Flight Commander, he was directly involved in initiating night operations to Leh and Thoise on the IL-76 aircraft. He has led multiple airborne exercises with foreign countries includin
Exercise Blue Crane
in South Africa in 1999

an

He captained a flight to th

making it th
first Indian aircraft to fly over the true North pole.
He played a pivotal role i
operationalising Daulet Beg Oldi
the highest air strip in the world , for An-32 and C-130 aircraft. He was involved in numerous disaster relief operations during the

2001 Gujarat earthquake The 2001 Gujarat earthquake, also known as the Bhuj earthquake, occurred on 26 January, India's 52nd Republic Day, at . The epicentre was about 9 km south-southwest of the village of Chobari in Bhachau Taluka of Kutch District of Gujarat ...

, Super cyclone in Orissa,

2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami An earthquake and a tsunami, known as the Boxing Day Tsunami and, by the scientific community, the Sumatra–Andaman earthquake, occurred at 07:58:53 local time (UTC+7) on 26 December 2004, with an epicentre off the west coast of northern Suma ...

, Mumbai Floods,

Cyclone Katrina In meteorology, a cyclone () is a large air mass that rotates around a strong center of low atmospheric pressure, counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere as viewed from above (opposite to an an ...

, China Earthquake and was the Air Force co-ordinator for

Operation Rahat Operation Rahat ( hi, राहत ''Rāhat'', lit. "Relief") was the name given to the Indian Air Force's rescue operations to evacuate civilians affected by the 2013 North India floods. Thousands of pilgrims in transit in the hill states of Utt ...

. He is a qualified Flying Instructor, has been an Air Force Examiner and is the Commodore Commandant of 44 Squadron (Mighty Jets). He joined the Armed Forces Tribunal as the Technical Member at the Kochi Bench on 15 September 2020.

Awards and medals

During 38 years of his career, Nair has been awarded several medals: AOC-in-C Commendation, Chief of the Air Staff Commendation, GOC-in-C Commendation, Mention-in-Despatch (1999), the

Vayu Sena Medal The Vayu Sena Medal is a military decoration, usually awarded in peacetime for a job well done in the Indian Air Force. However, it has been granted during times of conflict for acts of gallantry in the face of enemy, though not in the same numb ...

(2005), the

Ati Vishisht Seva Medal Ati Vishisht Seva Medal (AVSM) is a military award of India given to recognize "distinguished service of an exceptional order" to all ranks of the armed forces. The award is a peacetime equivalent of Uttam Yuddh Seva Medal, which is a Wartime Dis ...

(January 2010) and the Param Vishisht Seva Medal (January 2017).

Personal life

He is married to Geethanjali Nair and their daughter Karthika Nair (Director & Head of Operations, Praesedia Biotherapeutics Pvt. Ltd.) is married to Manu Balachandran, Associate Editor, Forbes India.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nair, S R K Living people Indian Air Force air marshals Recipients of the Param Vishisht Seva Medal Recipients of the Ati Vishisht Seva Medal 1958 births Recipients of the Vayu Sena Medal