Mr. Chkavarthi V Narasimhan, a national of India, served as the second Executive Secretary of ECAFE from 1956 to 1959.

Mr. Narasimhan entered the Indian Civil Service in 1936. After 13 years of service with the Provincial Government of Madras, he joined the Government of India in 1950, and until his appointment to the post of Executive Secretary of ECAFE, he held several posts in the Indian Ministries of Agriculture and Finance. At the time of his appointment to ECAFE in 1956, he was serving as Joint Secretary in the Economic Affairs Department of the Ministry of Finance. From January 1959 to March 1961, Mr. Narasimhan was Under-Secretary for Special Political affairs. Part of this period, he also served concurrently as Associate Managing Director of the United Nations Special Fund (now merged with UNDP). He was appointed to the post of Chef de Cabinet of the United Nations Secretary-General by the late Dag Hammarskjöld in 1961 and continued in that capacity under two more Secretaries-General, U Thant and Kurt Waldheim, until 15 September 1973.

In addition to heading the Executive Office of the Secretary-General, Mr. Narasimhan took over the responsibility for General Assembly Affairs in March 1962. On 1 August 1969, he became Deputy Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). He became Under-Secretary-General for Inter-agency Affairs and Coordination at the United Nations in October 1973. Mr. Narasimhan was educated at Madras University, India, and at Oxford University, United Kingdom.