PM exhibits risk-taking at the highest level, says NSA in book on Modi

NEW DELHI: At the core of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “style and direction” for counter-terror and counter-strike operations is the ability to adapt and surprise the enemy by exhibiting “risk-taking at the highest level”, writes national security adviser Ajit Doval in a new book that’s been brought out to celebrate 20 years of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in public office.

The book titled ‘Modi@20: Dreams meet Delivery’ will be out next month and has chapters written by home minister Amit Shah, minister of external affairs S Jaishankar, national security advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval, Nandan Nilenkani, Arvind Panagariya, Ashok Gulati, Sudha Murthy, the late Lata Mangeshkar, PV Sindhu and Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev. It has been edited by BlueKraft Digital Foundation and is being published by Rupa Publications.

The PM completed 20 years in public office last year.

In an excerpt reviewed by HT, Doval describes how Modi dealt with the Uri terror attack in September of 2016. 10 days later, India carried out what has now become known as a surgical strike, hitting targets across the Line of Control. “In the response to Uri 2016, a few aspects stand out,” writes Doval. “One, it was a simultaneous operation by multiple strike teams at four disparate locations and extended across a vast geographical boundary.”

The second aspect, the NSA said, is that the strikes were a political call taken by the PM, “which meant he was taking responsibility not only for success, but also for failure”. “This exhibited risk-taking at the highest level — a quality shown by very few...,” Doval writes.