Prabhakaran Paleri is the former director general of the Indian Coast Guard. He served in the executive branch of the Indian Navy and Customs Marine Organisation before joining the Indian Coast Guard in its early years. He holds a multidisciplinary Ph.D. degree in business administration and defence studies. A graduate in engineering, he is also a postgraduate in Business Administration from the University of Madras, and in National Security Strategy from the National Defence University, Washington, D.C. He is a Fellow of the Narotham Morarjee Institute of Shipping. Currently, he is the professor and head of the School of Management Studies at the National Institute of Technology, Calicut, and a part-time director on the Board of the Cochin Shipyard Limited. He had been a visiting research fellow in strategic studies in India and abroad. He has published various papers and three books.