The Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) is a four-star military officer and the highest-ranking uniformed officer of the Indian Armed Forces, established as a concept and an institution by a Cabinet decision and gazette notification in 2019. The idea for a single-point military advisor originated from the recommendations of the Kargil Review Committee and the subsequent Group of Ministers Report after the 1999 Kargil conflict, which identified a lack of integration among the three services as a problem. The CDS post was created to promote greater coordination, jointness, and integration among the Army, Navy, and Air Force, and to provide single-point military advice to the civilian leadership.
The CDS functions as the ex-officio Secretary to the Government of India for the newly created Department of Military Affairs (DMA) within the Ministry of Defence. This mechanism makes the CDS the Principal Military Advisor to the Defence Minister on all tri-service matters. The CDS is also the Permanent Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee (COSC), which comprises the three service chiefs, and is responsible for overseeing inter-service jointness across all military disciplines. Key functions include facilitating the restructuring of Military Commands into joint/theatre commands, ensuring optimal utilisation of resources, and assigning inter-services prioritisation to capital acquisition proposals. The CDS is a member of the Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) and the Military Advisor to the Nuclear Command Authority (NCA). While the CDS is the overall professional head of the armed forces, the office has no operational command control over the three services, as the respective Service Chiefs retain operational control. General Bipin Rawat was the first CDS, assuming office on January 1, 2020.