Vice Admiral Raman Puri was commissioned in the Indian Navy in Jan 1966. He is a Gunnery and Missile specialist and holds a Masters’s degree in Defence Studies from the Defence Services Staff College, Wellington. He is also an alumnus of the Command and General Staff College from the erstwhile USSR and the National Defence College, New Delhi. The Admiral has held a number of important Command and Staff Appointments during his distinguished career.

These include command of 5 frontline warships of the Indian Navy including the Aircraft Carrier INS Vikrant. He saw action in the 1971 war. His ashore appointments include founder Directorship of the College of Naval Warfare, Flag Officer Offshore Defence Advisory Group, Flag Officer Commanding Maharashtra Naval Area, Fortress Commander Andaman, and the Nicobar Islands, the Deputy Chief of the Naval Staff, New Delhi, and the Flag Officer Commanding in Chief Eastern Naval Command. Prior to his retirement, the Admiral was the Chief of the Integrated Defence Staff to the Chairman Chiefs of Staff Committee (CISC).

Ambassador Pradeep Kapur is an acknowledged “luminary diplomat,” with a distinguished career working with leaders and policymakers around the world. Author and editor of many books, he was Ambassador of India to Chile and to Cambodia and Secretary at the Indian Ministry of External Affairs. He is Executive Director of Smart Village Development Fund (SVDF). He received a Bachelor of Technology in Electrical Engineering in 1977 from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. In 1979, he received a Master of Technology in Management and Systems from IIT, Delhi.

As a career Indian Foreign Service officer from 1979 to 2013, he held many government posts both in India and abroad. From April 2001 to January 2005 he was the Indian ambassador to Cambodia. From October 2007 through January 2009, he was joint secretary of the Foreign Service Institute in New Delhi. From January 2009 to December 2013 he was the Indian ambassador to Chile.