A scholar, writer and defence analyst of repute, Maj. Gen. Yashwant Deva, AVSM (Retd) is a Fellow and founding member of Institute of Communication Engineers and Information Technologists (ICEIT). He was President of the Institution of Electronics and Telecommunication Engineers (IETE) for the years 2000-2002 and has been honoured with Distinguished Fellowship of the Institution. During his service career, he held various appointments in India and abroad. The latter included on the staff of International Commission for Supervision and Control (ICSC) in Vietnam, Military Attaché in Afghanistan and Chief Signal Officer of Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) in Sri Lanka. He is a veteran of 1965 and 1971 wars, Operation Pawan in Sri Lanka and internal hostilities and armed conflicts in J&K, Nagaland and Manipur. He is a recipient of Ati Vishisht Seva Medal for engineering a wide-ranging and integrated network of highly responsive communications over diverse media during Operation Pawan in Sri Lanka spanning the mainland to the island and the operational areas of IPKF; providing electronic support to the force; and for restoring war-ravaged telecommunication services in Jaffna Peninsular, as part of the civic action.

He regularly writes in the periodicals, service journals, and on the Web on technology and security related issues of topical interest. He is widely quoted in India and abroad as an authority on various facets of electrotechnology, e-intelligence, cyber-security and infowar. His written works include, Sky is the Limit: Signals in Operation Pawan (2007), Secure or Perish (2001) based on a project titled Emerging Global and National Information Infrastructures and their Security Implications: An Analysis conducted under the United Services Institute at Prof D S Kothari DRDO Chair, Dual Use Information Technology: An Indocentric Perspective (1997) published by the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, an edited compilation Multimedia'98: Shaping the Future (1998), e-monographs, Internet: Challenges, Opportunities and Prospects (2002), ICT (Information Communication Technology) for All: Empowering People to Cross the Digital Divide (2003), and Special Issue of Technical Review on Information Security (2002), published by the IETE. His works have been placed in the national libraries of the various countries including those of the parliaments, and on the “Best of the Web”.

He is committed to a life-long two-pronged mission of “Reaching Other Side of the Digital Divide” and “Taking Technology to the Trench”. He has a measure of success in his endeavours to sensitise the technology savvy and prod the decision-makers in either field.