RK Sinha

Ravindra Kishore Sinha was born on 22 September 1951 in Bihar. Hindi press and Wikipedia associate him with Buxar district, and Zee News reports that his ancestral village is in Buxar; News18 Hindi names Bahiyara village in Bhojpur district as his birthplace. He grew up and completed his education in Patna. Affectionately he was called 'Bade Sahab' by many associates, according to News18 Hindi.

Sinha was a graduate in political science and in law, according to his own biography and the SIS Group founder page. He completed his schooling and higher education in Patna.

He began his working life as a journalist in Patna specialising in crime and political reporting, reportedly on a salary of about 250 rupees a month. He covered the 1971 India-Pakistan war as a correspondent. During the early 1970s he wrote 'Jan Andolan' (Janandolan), a research book on the student movement led by Jayaprakash Narayan between 1970 and 1975.

In 1974 Sinha founded Security and Intelligence Services (India) Limited in Patna, an idea that grew from Jayaprakash Narayan's suggestion that he help retired soldiers after the 1971 war find work as security guards. The company started from a small rented office with a team of two. It grew into one of India's largest security services groups, adding facility management, cash logistics and electronic security, and expanded abroad when SIS bought the Australian guarding business of Chubb in 2008. SIS later listed on Indian stock exchanges; by 2026 reports put group revenue at about 16,000 crore rupees. Sinha remained founder and group chairman, represented the private security industry before government on legislation and regulation, served as Regional Vice President for South Asia of the World Safety Organisation (1989 to 1991) and as executive chairman of the International Institute of Security and Safety Management.

Sinha was involved with the Bharatiya Jana Sangh and is described as one of the founding members of the BJP, holding organisational positions at state and central level and chairing the Bihar BJP election campaign committee. He was an adviser to the Ministry of Human Resource Development from 1999 to 2004. Nominated by the BJP, he was elected to the Rajya Sabha from Bihar and served from 10 April 2014 to 9 April 2020. He sat on the standing committees on Home Affairs and External Affairs, among others. In the house he spoke on the Black Money and Imposition of Tax Bill 2015, unemployment data and drug addiction among schoolchildren.

In 2016 the RSS leadership asked Sinha to take charge of Hindusthan Samachar, the multilingual news agency founded in 1948. He resigned as chairman in April 2022. Throughout his later life he wrote opinion columns in Hindi newspapers, which he often shared on X.

Sinha was married to Rita Kishore Sinha, who served as a director in SIS group entities. Their son Rituraj Kishore Sinha joined the family business in 2002 and became group managing director of SIS. Sinha lived in Noida in his later years and kept close ties with Patna, where the family home Annapurna Bhawan stands in Pataliputra.

A lifelong member of the Sangh parivar's political tradition, Sinha combined business with social work. He was president of the Akhil Bharatiya Kayastha Mahasabha, chairman of the Awasar Trust, president of Vatsalya Gram and a founder member of Patanjali Yog Peeth, and he founded the Indian Public School in Dehradun. Through SIS he backed corporate social responsibility efforts such as support for the families of CRPF personnel killed in a 2017 Naxal attack in Sukma, including a promise of jobs for family members.

Loss Prevention Promoter Award from the Security Association of Singapore (2006). Lifetime Achievement Award from the Central Association of Private Security Industry (2013).

In November 2017 the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and The Indian Express named Sinha in the Paradise Papers. Records showed he held one share in SIS Asia Pacific Holdings, a Malta-registered SIS subsidiary, with the remaining shares held by a British Virgin Islands company, and that his wife was a director. Critics noted the link was not in his 2014 election affidavit. Sinha said he held the share on behalf of SIS and not in a personal capacity, and that all required disclosures had been made. When reporters asked him about it, India Today reported that he wrote that he was observing a vow of silence.

Sinha is remembered as a first-generation entrepreneur from Bihar who turned a plan to employ ex-servicemen into a multinational security and facility services group, creating employment for very large numbers of guards and staff. Tributes on his death described him as a journalist, social worker, industrialist and politician whose contribution to public life would be remembered.

On the evening of 17 January 2025, while travelling home to Noida after a meeting in Delhi, Sinha suffered a brain stroke with a haemorrhage in the midbrain area. He had emergency surgery that night at Max Super Speciality Hospital, Delhi, was moved by air ambulance to a hospital in Singapore, and underwent a further VP shunt operation there in February 2025. Reports say he remained in a coma for a long period. He died at his residence in Noida on the morning of Friday 30 October 2026, aged 75. An official cause of death was not announced. His body was to be brought to Annapurna Bhawan, Pataliputra, Patna, for people to pay their last respects, with final rites planned at his ancestral village in Buxar.