Dr Rakesh Chopra is an MSc from Madras University and an MBA from B school, JBIMS, in Mumbai. He has also obtained an MPhil and PhD from Mumbai University in Strategic Studies & International Relations focusing on “Energy Security”. Also an amateur historian, he is a member the Indian History. He studied at Bishop Cotton School, Shimla, and at the National Defence Academy for a military career.

After serving in the Indian Navy took up appointment with XLRI Jamshedpur, as Professor of Strategy and subsequently with IMT Ghaziabad.

Dr Rakesh Chopra is also a Senior Visiting Research Fellow with the “Oxford Leverhulme Programme on the Changing Character of War” at All Souls College Oxford University. He is a founder member and on the Board of Directors of a think tank “Peace Operations Institute” in Washington DC, USA.

Dr R Chopra has also had a commendable academic and instructional career in the military. An alumnus of the Defence Services Staff College, he has also been on the Directing Staff. He was a founding member and Chief Instructor or the Dean of the College of Naval Warfare at Karanja, Mumbai, and the Chief Instructor of the Navigation & Direction School where officers specialize in the planning and conduct of maritime operations.

He commanded a ship in the 1971 Indo Pak war in the Eastern Theatre and was a member of the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) in Sri Lanka in 1988 where he was awarded ‘Mention in Dispatches’ for gallantry during operations. Subsequently he was awarded the Vishisht Seva Medal by the President of India for exemplary service.