Dev Prabhakar Singh Tomar is the grandson of an infamous Chambal dacoit. After four attempts at UPSC, three interviews and years of preparation, Tomar secured an AIR of 629. The Chambal region, which straddles the borders of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, has long been synonymous with two things—its rugged ravines and the dangerous dacoits that dwelled in them.  One can leave Chambal to escape the poverty and caste conflict that plagues the region, but the dacoit tag is far more difficult to shed. It follows you everywhere.  Tomar’s grandfather accepted state amnesty and surrendered back in 1972. But his Chambal links followed Tomar through school, college and higher studies.  His way of overcoming the stigma was to study hard, score well in his exams and find a good job. To know what pushed him to prepare for civil services, read this report by Himanshi Aggarwal: theprint.in/ground-reports/f…

Good points. A little context: NSG was designed after much debate under core police-army-civil team to follow the broad structure if German anti-terror group GSG9. This was given its IPS against the Baadee-Meinhof Gang if I remember corrected. Others, SAS, US spl forces and the Israeli anti-terror groups were seem as too military. The larger motivation was to keep it still in a police structure, led by a senior cop. This was the lesson, and a response to Op Bluestar that drew enormous controversy and embarrassment for the Army. The idea was now to keep the Army out of counter-terror except in live insurgencies. Once the German design was chosen for the new institution, GSG standard weapon became the first choice. That the Germans later pulled out spares and support was a bitter lesson learnt. Of course now the sane Germans will sell anything to India and also buy loads of ammunition esp 155mm artillery shells. But that’s if only if we’d sell to them. That equation has changed. And brave risk-taking entrepreneurs like you are one if the reasons for this.

'Dinesh Trivedi has done what India’s Bangladesh policy needed—put Dhaka on the backfoot' Deep Halder @deepscribble writes #ThePrintOpinion theprint.in/opinion/dinesh-t…