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Vappala Balachandran is an Indian national security intelligence specialist. He worked as a police officer in Maharashtra in the 1960s and early 70s, and subsequently for the Cabinet Secretariat of the Government of India, where he was appointed Special Secretary.

He is the author of three books, two on security and one on the life of A.C.N. Nambiar.

Balachandran has also written newspaper columns on security and strategic subjects in Indian and foreign publications.

Early life

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Balachandran originally hails from the state of Kerala, Southern India. His father, K.P. Kutti Krishna Menon, was an officer in the Myanmar government and he lived in Yangon till 1940. During World War 2, his father stayed back in Myanmar to serve the government.

Balachandran is the grand nephew of V.P. Menon from Ottapalam, Kerala.

Career

From 1961 to 1965, Balachandran was an Assistant Superintendent of Police in Nashik in northern Maharashtra. Between 1965 and 1972 he was Superintendent of Police, first in Sangli district and then in Yeotmal district. He was appointed Deputy Commissioner of Police in Bombay (present-day Mumbai) in 1972.

In 1976 he started working for the Indian government's Cabinet Secretariat in New Delhi. He retired in 1995.

Between 2007 and 2009 he wrote several papers for the Henry L. Stimson Center, Washington, D.C. for their "Regional Voices" project. His paper "Insurgency, terrorism, and transnational trends" was included as Chapter 6 in their publication Transnational Trends.

Balachandran along with R. D. Pradhan was a member of the two-man "High Level Committee" appointed by the Government of Maharashtra to inquire into the police response during the Mumbai 26 November 2008 terror attacks. This committee gave scathing remarks about systemic degeneration of security establishments such as A.T.S. Maharashtra.

In November 2009 he was invited by the Governor of Hawaii to be the keynote speaker at the 2009 Asia Pacific Homeland Security Summit at Honolulu and address senior police officials in Singapore on urban security and terrorism. Balachandran spoke at the Pluscarden Programme conference on "The Future of International Cooperation in Countering Violent Extremism" at St Antony's College, Oxford University in October 2010 and in 2013 on "India's Politics of Free Expression-A Law & Order perspective" under the "Marchioness of Winchester Lectures 2013". The interview was aired by the BBC radio along with three other participants.

Vappala Balachandran is also an active columnist who writes for The Sunday Guardian and The Asian Age newspapers.

Awards

In 1975, Balachandran was awarded the Indian Police Medal for meritorious service and in 1986, The President's Police medal for meritorious service.

Books

• National Security and Intelligence Management-A New Paradigm (2014)
• A life in Shadow (2017)
• Keeping India Safe: The Dilemma of Internal Security (2017)

References

1. Dikshit, Sandeep (18 December 2022). "Spies and the spycraft: Vappala Balachandran's 'Intelligence Over Centuries'". The Tribune India. Archived from the original on 19 February 2023. Retrieved 19 February 2023.
2. "Vappala Balachandran". Harper Collins Publishers India. Retrieved 11 November 2020.
3. "Internal Security Threats & Sources of Instability in India and Pakistan". The Stimson Center. Archived from the original on 25 December 2014. Retrieved 17 November 2014.
4. "Lessons from Mumbai". The Hindu. 15 June 2009. Archived from the original on 25 November 2014. Retrieved 21 November 2014.
5. ^ Ansari, Mubarak (26 July 2014). "Cops to get major weapon upgrade". Pune Mirror. Archived from the original on 10 December 2014. Retrieved 21 November 2014.
6. "7th Annual Asia-Pacific Homeland Security Summit Begins November 9th". Hawaii Reporter. 6 November 2009. Archived from the original on 28 February 2024.
7. Balachandran, Vappala (11 October 2010). "Dealing with the aftermath of attacks" (PDF). St Antony's College, Oxford. Archived from the original (PDF) on 18 December 2014. Retrieved 25 November 2014.
8. Mitter, Rana (22 June 2013). "China Growth, Free Speech in India, Disability and the Arts". Night Waves. BBC Radio 3. Retrieved 25 November 2014.
9. "Police & State". The Sunday Guardian. Archived from the original on 20 March 2015. Retrieved 28 November 2014.
10. "V. Balachandran". The Asian Age. Archived from the original on 8 December 2014. Retrieved 28 November 2014.
11. Raghavan, V.R. (7 July 2014). "Intelligence: more failures than successes". The Hindu. Archived from the original on 11 July 2014. Retrieved 23 November 2014.
12. Sen, Mamta Chitnis (15 March 2014). "'Police need to adopt scientific probe methods'" (Press release). The Sunday Guardian. Archived from the original on 9 December 2014. Retrieved 21 November 2014.
13. "Charting 3 decades of terror intelligence coordination failure". The Times of India. Times News Network. 13 March 2014. Archived from the original on 5 March 2016. Retrieved 28 November 2014.
14. Mukherji, Saradindu (8 April 2017). "Behind the Spotlight". The Hindu. Archived from the original on 9 April 2020. Retrieved 15 February 2019.
15. Ahmad, Omair; Balachandran, Vappala (27 March 2017). "Interview: Uncovering the Remarkable Life of A.C.N. Nambiar". The Wire. Retrieved 21 November 2017.
16. Singh, Prakash (29 July 2017). "State of the Union". The Indian Express. Archived from the original on 1 December 2017. Retrieved 21 November 2017.

• Writers from Mumbai
• 1937 births
• 21st-century Indian non-fiction writers
• Living people