Admiral Devendra Kumar Joshi, PVSM,

AVSM 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 ...

, YSM, VSM, NM (born 4 July 1954) is the Lieutenant Governor of

Andaman and Nicobar Islands The Andaman and Nicobar Islands is a union territory of India consisting of 572 islands, of which 37 are inhabited, at the junction of the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea. The territory is about north of Aceh in Indonesia and separated f ...

and the Vice Chairman of Islands Development Agency (IDA). He was an Admiral in the

Indian Navy The Indian Navy is the maritime branch of the Indian Armed Forces. The President of India is the Supreme Commander of the Indian Navy. The Chief of Naval Staff, a four-star admiral, commands the navy. As a blue-water navy, it operates si ...

and served as the 21st Chief of Naval Staff of the

, having assumed office on 31 August 2012. He is a specialist in anti-submarine warfare. He resigned on 26 February 2014, taking responsibility for a series of accidents, thus becoming the first Indian Navy Chief to resign. Admiral Joshi has joined the Uttarakhand War Memorial as one of its patron in May 2020. Subsequently, paying homage to brave sons/daughters of

Uttarakhand Uttarakhand ( , or ; , ), also known as Uttaranchal ( ; the official name until 2007), is a state in the northern part of India. It is often referred to as the "Devbhumi" (literally 'Land of the Gods') due to its religious significance and ...

in security of the nation and furthering the cause of the Uttarakhand War Memorial Trust, he has also contributed all his current and future annuities (for gallantry awards/decorations) towards the trust in July, 2020.

Early life

Devendra Kumar Joshi was born to Hira Ballabh Joshi, an

Indian Forest Service The Indian Forest Service (IFS) is one of the three All India Services of the Government of India. The other two All India Services being the Indian Administrative Service and the Indian Police Service. It was constituted in the year 1966 und ...

Officer and Hansa Joshi on July 4, 1954. After completing his early education in various schools wherever his father was posted, he moved to Hansraj College of the

University of Delhi Delhi University (DU), formally the University of Delhi, is a collegiate university, collegiate Central university (India), central university located in New Delhi, India. It was founded in 1922 by an Act of the Central Legislative Assembly and ...

. While studying in

Delhi Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, primarily its western or right bank, Delhi shares borders ...

, he was selected into the Executive Branch of the

in January 1972 and was subsequently commissioned in 1974. In an interview with Doordarshan, when asked why he had chosen to join the Navy, he replied, "I think it was the lure of the seas, the pull of the unknown...we belong to the hills. Of the land, the hilly terrains, one had seen enough!" As he also said in the same interview, "from both my father's side and my mother's side, for seven generations nobody had been in the

Services Service may refer to: Activities * Administrative service, a required part of the workload of university faculty * Civil service, the body of employees of a government * Community service, volunteer service for the benefit of a community or a p ...

. Therefore, they y parentshad not even thought of the Armed Forces as a career option for me. However, once I had made up my mind, they were fully supportive".

Military career

Joshi graduated from the

Indian Naval Academy The Indian Naval Academy (INA or INA Ezhimala) is the defence service training establishment for officer cadre of the Indian Naval Service and the Indian Coast Guard, located in Ezhimala, Kannur district, Kerala. Situated between Ezhimala h ...

and was commissioned into the executive branch of the Indian Navy on April 1, 1974. He is also an alumnus of the

Naval War College The Naval War College (NWC or NAVWARCOL) is the staff college and "Home of Thought" for the United States Navy at Naval Station Newport in Newport, Rhode Island. The NWC educates and develops leaders, supports defining the future Navy and associ ...

Newport, Rhode Island Newport is an American seaside city on Aquidneck Island in Newport County, Rhode Island. It is located in Narragansett Bay, approximately southeast of Providence, south of Fall River, Massachusetts, south of Boston, and northeast of New Yor ...

, the College of Naval Warfare, Goa, and the National Defence College, New Delhi.

Chief of Naval Staff

Subsequently, Joshi was elevated as the 21st Chief of Naval Staff of the

, having assumed office on 31 August 2012. Admiral Joshi resigned following a fire aboard

Kilo-class submarine The Kilo class, Soviet designation Project 877 ''Paltus'' (russian: Па́лтус, meaning " halibut"), NATO reporting name Kilo, is a class of diesel-electric attack submarines originally designed in the 1970s and built in the Soviet Uni ...

INS Sindhuratna on 26 February 2014.

The Times of India ''The Times of India'', also known by its abbreviation ''TOI'', is an Indian English-language daily newspaper and digital news media owned and managed by The Times Group. It is the third-largest newspaper in India by circulation and largest ...

wrote that Admiral D. K. Joshi, who was to serve as the Navy Chief till August 2015, "was a hard taskmaster who always ran tight ships. He was unforgiving as a commanding officer wherever he served, tightening screws wherever he went." Many naval officers felt that he had lived up to his own exacting standards by resigning.

Islands Development Agency

The Islands Development Agency (IDA) was constituted on 1 June 2017 under the Chairmanship of

Home Minister The Minister of Home Affairs (or simply, the Home Minister, short-form HM) is the head of the Ministry of Home Affairs of the Government of India. One of the senior-most officers in the Union Cabinet, the chief responsibility of the Home Minist ...

Rajnath Singh Rajnath Singh (; born 10 July 1951) is an Indian politician serving as the Defence Minister of India. He is currently the Deputy Leader of the House Lok Sabha. He is the former President of Bharatiya Janata Party. He has previously served as ...

, and Admiral D. K. Joshi was designated as its Vice-Chairman, following the

Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister i ...

Narendra Modi Narendra Damodardas Modi (; born 17 September 1950) is an Indian politician serving as the 14th and current Prime Minister of India since 2014. Modi was the Chief Minister of Gujarat from 2001 to 2014 and is the Member of Parliament fro ...

's review meeting on the development of Indian Islands Territories. The major mandate of the Islands Development Agency includes guiding the policies, programmes and formulation of Integrated Master Plans for Comprehensive Development of the Islands. Islands Development Agency, with support of the NITI Aayog, is undertaking the holistic development of the Islands territories of India, while giving due consideration to their unique maritime and territorial bio-diversity. The first IDA Meeting held on 24 July 2017. IDA has so far met six times since its constitution, with the fourth review meeting held on 30 June 2018, being Chaired by the Hon’ble Prime Minister of India himself. With the re-constitution of Islands Development Agency, the Government of India has been fast-tracking the holistic development its Islands territories.

Lieutenant Governor of Andaman and Nicobar Islands

Joshi took oath on 8 October 2017 as the fourteenth Lieutenant Governor of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, a territory which is the largest archipelago system in the Bay of Bengal, composed of 836 islands, islets and rocks. He concurrently remains designated as Vice-Chairman Islands Development Agency also.

Awards

References

, - , - {{DEFAULTSORT:Joshi, Devendra Kumar Chiefs of the Naval Staff (India) Living people Military personnel from Uttarakhand Indian Navy admirals Naval War College alumni 1954 births Recipients of the Param Vishisht Seva Medal People from Almora Lieutenant governors of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands National Defence College, India alumni Commanders-in-Chief, Andaman and Nicobar Command Recipients of the Ati Vishisht Seva Medal Recipients of the Yudh Seva Medal Recipients of the Vishisht Seva Medal Recipients of the Nau Sena Medal Naval War College, Goa alumni