Prime Minister Narendra Modi chaired a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Security on August 17. The meeting was attended by senior ministers — Amit Shah, Rajnath Singh and Nirmala Sitharaman — and National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla and Indian envoy to Afghanistan Rudrendra Tandon to take stock of the situation in that country after the Taliban seized power.

The Cabinet Committee on Security is the country’s highest decision-making body on security affairs.

Members of the Cabinet Committee on Security:

• PM Narendra Modi

• Rajnath Singh

• Amit Shah

• Nirmala Sitharaman

• S.Jaishankar.

Functions of the Cabinet Committee on Security include:

• Deal with all defence related issues.

• Deal with issues relating to law and order, and internal security.

• Deal with policy matters concerning foreign affairs that have internal or external security implications including cases relating to agreements with other countries on security related issues.

• Deal with economic and political issues impinging on national security.

• Review the manpower requirements relating to national security including proposals concerning creation of posts carrying the pay scale or pay band plus Grade Pay equivalent to that of a joint secretary to the government of India and higher, and setting up new structures to deal with security related issues.

• To deal with all matters relating to atomic energy.

Additional reading: 

An explainer on various Cabinet Committees and its functions

• Cabinet committee is a group of ministers which can take collective decisions that are binding across various ministries/departments. They are partly designed to reduce the burden on the Union Cabinet by allowing smaller groups of ministers to take decisions on specific policy areas. 

Manorama Yearbook app is now available on Google Play Store and iOS App Store