Devendra Kumar Joshi, 21st Chief of Naval Staff of the Indian Navy

Admiral Devendra Kumar Joshi, PVSM, AVSM, YSM, NM, VSM is the Lieutenant Governor of Andaman and Nicobar Islands and the Vice Chairman of Islands Development Agency (IDA). He was an Admiral in the Indian Navy and served as the 21st Chief of Naval Staff of the Indian Navy, having assumed office on 31 August 2012. He is a specialist in anti-submarine warfare. He resigned on 26 February 2014, taking responsibility for a series of accidents, thus becoming the first Indian Navy Chief to resign.

The Chief of the Naval Staff (CNS) is a statutory office held by the professional head of the Indian Navy (IN), the naval branch of the Indian Armed Forces. Customarily held by a four-star admiral, the CNS is the senior-most operational officer of the IN, tasked with the roles of overseeing the force's overall functioning during states of peace and conflict, along with the realization of India's strategic maritime objectives, namely, the defence of the country's sovereignty against maritime threats and the security of international sea lines in the Indo-Pacific.

The Indian Navy (IN) is the maritime branch of the Indian Armed Forces. The President of India is the Supreme Commander of the Indian Navy. The Chief of Naval Staff, a four-star admiral, commands the navy. As a blue-water navy, it operates significantly in the Persian Gulf Region, the Horn of Africa, the Strait of Malacca, and routinely conducts anti-piracy operations with other navies in the region. It also conducts routine two to three month-long deployments in the South and East China seas as well as in the western Mediterranean sea simultaneously.