Minister of Defence (India) Minister of Defence (India) The Minister of Defence is the head of the Ministry of Defence of the Government of India. They are often assisted by a Minister of State for Defence and less-commonly, the lower-ranked Deputy Minister of Defence. The defence minister additionally serves as President of the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, and as Chancellor of the Defence Institute of Advanced Technology and of the National Defence University. The first defence minister of independent India was Baldev Singh, who served in Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru's cabinet during 1947–52. Nirmala Sitharaman, the current defence minister of India is
Prime Minister of India or AIC001), and maintained by the Indian Air Force—are used. The Special Protection Group (SPG) is charged with protecting the sitting prime minister and his/her family. The Prime Minister's Office (PMO) acts as the principal workplace of the prime minister. The office is located at South Block, and is a 20-room complex, and has the Cabinet Secretariat, the Ministry of Defence and the Ministry of External Affairs adjacent to it. The office is headed by the Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister of India, generally a former civil servant, mostly from the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) and rarely from the