Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Principal Secretary, P.K. Mishra, emphasized the importance of values, teamwork, and continuous learning over technical skills alone while addressing the convocation of the Indian Institute of Management, Mumbai, on September 20, 2025. He urged students to cultivate qualities such as openness, mutual respect, humility, ethics, transparency, and objectivity for success in both career and life.
Highlighting human resource development, Mr. Mishra noted that knowledge becomes quickly obsolete in a rapidly evolving world, and organisations must focus on sustained motivation and value instillation. On administrative reforms, he described the strategic shift in personnel management since 2014 as aimed at creating a “21st century civil service.”
Key reforms include the overhaul of the empanelment process for senior positions like Joint Secretary, Additional Secretary, and Secretary, moving beyond annual assessment reports to a multi-source feedback system introduced in 2016. This system evaluates decision-making, ownership, delivery, proactiveness, and integrity through feedback from seniors, juniors, peers, and external stakeholders.
Mr. Mishra said these reforms have widened the talent pool and strengthened credibility in appointments, ensuring that domain expertise, aptitude, and reputation guide selections across the Central Government and PSUs.
