Minister of External Affairs (May 2019 – Present): Subrahmanyam Jaishankar
Date of Birth: January 9, 1955
Place of Birth: New Delhi
Parents: His mother is Sulochana Jaishankar and his father is K Subrahmanyam, a well-known strategic affairs analyst and commentator, and civil servant.
Spouse: His wife Kyoko Jaishankar is originally from Japan. They have a daughter Medha and two sons – Dhruva and Arjun.
Political Party: Jaishankar belongs to the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party).
Education: He was a student of the Cambridge School, Srinivaspuri, Delhi. He pursued his graduation from St. Stephen’s College, University of Delhi.
He completed his MA (Master of Arts) in Political Science from JNU (Jawaharlal Nehru University). It was from this university that he completed an M.Phil as well as a PhD in International Relations. For his PhD, he specialized in nuclear diplomacy. Apart from English, he is also fluent in a number of other languages, such as Tamil, Mandarin, Russian, Japanese, Hindi, and Hungarian.
Career: Jaishankar is one of the foremost diplomats of India and one look at his resume should be a good enough indication of the same. In fact, it was in 1977 that he joined the Indian Foreign Service. In the beginning of his diplomatic career, he worked as the 3rd secretary and 2nd secretary to the Indian mission that was present at Moscow in erstwhile Soviet Union in 1979-81.
Jaishankar has served as the Indian Ambassador to the Czech Republic from January 1, 2001 to January 1, 2004. He worked as the High Commissioner of India to Singapore from January 1, 2007 to June 1, 2009. He was the Indian Ambassador to China from June 1, 2009 to December 1, 2013. He has also worked as the Indian Ambassador to the USA (United States of America) from December 1, 2013 to January 28, 2015. He also played a major role in the negotiations regarding the civil nuclear deal signed by India and the USA. On January 28, 2015, he was appointed the 31st Foreign Secretary of India, and held that position for exactly 3 years. After he retired from a career in bureaucracy, he became the President, Global Corporate Affairs of Tata Sons.
In 2019 he received Padma Shri, which happens to be the fourth highest civilian honour of India
Political Milestones: On May 30, 2019, he was appointed the Minister of External Affairs in Modi 2.0 Cabinet. With this, he became the first former Foreign Secretary to have risen to this post.
Related Links:
