Shivshankar Menon (born 5 July 1949) is a retired Indian diplomat of

Indian Foreign Service The Indian Foreign Service (IFS) is a diplomatic service and a Central Civil Services, central civil service of the Government of India, Government of the Republic of India under the Ministry of External Affairs (India), Ministry of External A ...

who served as National Security Advisor of India to the

Prime Minister A prime minister or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. A prime minister is not the head of state, but r ...

Manmohan Singh Manmohan Singh (26 September 1932 – 26 December 2024) was an Indian economist, bureaucrat, academician, and statesman, who served as the prime minister of India from 2004 to 2014. He was the fourth longest-serving prime minister after Jaw ...

. He had previously served as the Foreign Secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs. Prior to that he was Indian High Commissioner to Pakistan, and Sri Lanka and ambassador to China and Israel. He is currently Distinguished Fellow at the Centre for Social and Economic Progress. He is also Visiting Professor of International Relations at Ashoka University.

Early life and education

Shivshankar Menon hails from Ottapalam in the

Palakkad Palakkad (), Renaming of cities in India, also known as Palghat, historically known as Palakkattussery, is a city and a municipality in the States and union territories of India, Indian state of Kerala. It is the administrative headquarters of P ...

district of

Kerala Kerala ( , ) is a States and union territories of India, state on the Malabar Coast of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, following the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, by combining Malayalam-speaking regions of the erstwhile ...

. He comes from a family of diplomats; his father, Parappil Narayana Menon, served as the ambassador to Yugoslavia in his last days. His grandfather K. P. S. Menon (senior) was India's first Foreign Secretary, while his uncle K. P. S. Menon (junior) was the former Indian ambassador to China and the 15th Foreign Secretary. His great-grandfather, Sir C. Sankaran Nair, was a president of the

Indian National Congress The Indian National Congress (INC), colloquially the Congress Party, or simply the Congress, is a political parties in India, political party in India with deep roots in most regions of India. Founded on 28 December 1885, it was the first mo ...

in 1897, so far the only Malayali to hold this position. Menon did his schooling at Scindia School,

Gwalior Gwalior (Hindi: , ) is a major city in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh; It is known as the Music City of India having oldest Gwalior gharana, musical gharana in existence. It is a major sports, cultural, industrial, and political c ...

, and later did his MA in history from St. Stephen's College,

Delhi Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, but spread chiefly to the west, or beyond its Bank (geography ...

Career

Menon started his career in 1972 with the

. He served in the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) as Advisor to the Atomic Energy Commission. His work continued through his posting in Vienna. He was then posted to Beijing, the second of three postings he served in China. His last position in China as ambassador was also significant as it marked improvement in Sino-India relations, the high point being the visit of then Prime Minister

Atal Bihari Vajpayee Atal Bihari Vajpayee (25 December 1924 – 16 August 2018) was an Indian poet, writer and statesman who served as the prime minister of India, first for a term of 13 days in 1996, then for a period of 13 months from 1998 ...

. Menon has also served as Ambassador to Israel and High Commissioner to Sri Lanka and Pakistan. He was appointed Foreign Secretary in 2006, and was the National Security Advisor to Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh. He relinquished office as India's 4th National Security Advisor on 15 May 2014. He is also currently a Visiting Professor of International Relations at Ashoka University. A major milestone of his career was the Indo-US nuclear deal, for which he had worked hard to convince NSG member nations along with Shyam Saran to get a clean waiver for nuclear supplies to India. Menon joined the

Brookings Institution The Brookings Institution, often stylized as Brookings, is an American think tank that conducts research and education in the social sciences, primarily in economics (and tax policy), metropolitan policy, governance, foreign policy, global econo ...

(USA) as a distinguished fellow and also serves as chairman of the advisory board of the Institute of Chinese Studies based in New Delhi. He has been a Fisher Family Fellow at the Kennedy School, Harvard University 2015 and Richard Wilhelm Fellow at

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of modern technology and sc ...

in 2015. He was chosen to be one of the “Top 100 Global Thinkers” by

Foreign Policy Foreign policy, also known as external policy, is the set of strategies and actions a State (polity), state employs in its interactions with other states, unions, and international entities. It encompasses a wide range of objectives, includ ...

magazine in 2010. He joined the Institute of South Asian Studies at

National University of Singapore The National University of Singapore (NUS) is a national university, national Public university, public research university in Singapore. It was officially established in 1980 by the merging of the University of Singapore and Nanyang University ...

as a Distinguished Visiting Fellow in November 2017.

Publications

* ''Choices: Inside the Making of India's Foreign Policy''. 2016. Brookings Institution Press. Penguin. * ''India and Asian Geopolitics: The Past, Present. 2021''. Brookings Institution Press. Menon wrote "Choices: Inside The Making of Indian Foreign Policy" that was first published in 2016 and was based on his experience as National Security Advisor of India.

Personal life

He is married to Mohini Menon and has a daughter and a son. His mother tongue is

Malayalam Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian languages, Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry (union territory), Puducherry (Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of ...

and he also speaks

Hindi Modern Standard Hindi (, ), commonly referred to as Hindi, is the Standard language, standardised variety of the Hindustani language written in the Devanagari script. It is an official language of India, official language of the Government ...

, English, Chinese and German. He has interests in classical music and the Himalayas. The Scindia School conferred on Shivshankar Menon the 'Madhav Award' as an alumnus of eminence for the year 2000.

Honours

Order of the Rising Sun, 2nd Class, Gold and Silver Star (2022)

References