New Delhi, 31 may 2019 . Former foreign secretary S Jaishankar was given the charge of the External Affairs ministry on Friday. With the new responsibility, Jaishankar is a surprise entrant to PM Narendra Modi’s Cabinet, which took oath on Thursday.
Former foreign secretary S Jaishankar’s induction in the Modi government as an MoS is hardly a surprise to foreign policy wonks. Jaishankar, son of the strategic affairs expert K Subrahmanyam, has been Modi’s go-to man on foreign policy since his Gujarat CM days. Jaishankar was then India’s ambassador to China, and the two met when- e v e r M o d i visited. In January 2015, Jaishankar was days away from his retirement when he was dramatically made foreign secretary by Modi. As foreign secretary, Jaishankar worked the back channels to end the India-China standoff at Doklam. His tenure as FS was later extended by a year. Jaishankar joined the Tata group three months after his retirement and after the “cooling-off period’’ of a year for bureaucrats was waived off by the government in his case.
An IFS officer from the 1977 batch, he served as India’s ambassador to the US, China Singapore and Czech Republic. He also led the negotiations for the India-US nuclear deal between 2004 and 2008.
A 1977 batch Indian Foreign Officer, Jaishankar has previously served as Indian ambassador to US (2014-15), China (2009-13) among other European nations, and had a major role in the negotiation of the ambitious India-US civil nuclear agreement.
