Air Marshal Manish Kumar Gupta, AVSM assumed the command of National Defence College at New Delhi on 01 Oct 2025. Air Officer was commissioned on 16 Dec 1989, in the fighter stream of Indian Air Force. He is an alumnus of National Defence Academy, Defence Services Staff College, College of Air Warfare and National Defence College. He has flown MiG-21 and Mirage-2000 during the operational tenures. He is a Fighter Combat Leader & Qualified Flying Instructor, with more than 3100 hours of flying experience.
His field tenures include Flight Commander and Commanding Officer of a fighter squadron, Chief Operations Officer of a fighter base, Command of an Air Defence node, a fighter base and a strategic air-lift base. His staff appointments have been at Air HQ and Central Air Command. At Air HQ he served at Directorate of Air Staff Inspection and C4ISR. He was also the Chief Instructor (Air) at DSSC. Prior to his present appointment as Commandant of National Defence College, he was the Senior Directing Staff (Air). He is married to Mrs. Nidhi Gupta and they have two sons, Suraj & Aaditya.
