By Shishir Prashant 
PrashantNews
The Government on Saturday appointed Lt Gen N S Raja Subramani (retd) as the new Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), who shall also function as the Secretary to Government of India, Department of Military Affairs.
The present CDS Gen Anil Chauhan will complete his tenure on May 30, 2026.
Lt Gen NS Raja Subramani is currently Military Adviser, National Security Council Secretariat. Prior to that, he was the Vice Chief of the Army Staff from July 01, 2024 to July 31, 2025, the day he superannuated after 39 years of illustrious career in the Indian Army.
He was General Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Central Command from March 2023 till June 2024.
The CDS-designate is a Graduate of the National Defence Academy and Indian Military Academy (IMA). He was commissioned into the 8th Battalion of the Garhwal Rifles on December 14, 1985. He is an alumnus of Joint Services Command Staff College, Bracknell (UK), and National Defence College, New Delhi. He holds a Master of Arts Degree from King’s College London and an M Phil in Defence Studies from Madras University.
Lt Gen Subramani has served across a wide spectrum of conflict and terrain profiles and tenanted a host of Command, Staff and Instructional appointments. He commanded 16 Garhwal Rifles in Counter-Insurgency in Assam as part of Operation Rhino, 168 Infantry Brigade in Jammu & Kashmir and 17 Mountain Division in the Central Sector during a challenging operational environment. He also has the distinction of having commanded 2 Corps, the premier strike Corps of the Indian Army on the Western Front.