Former Foreign Secretary and top diplomat S Jaishankar has been inducted into the Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Council of Ministers, who were sworn in on Thursday evening. The former bureaucrat took the oath of office along with other Cabinet colleagues at the Rashtrapati Bhavan.
Former Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar is now likely to resign as the President of Global Corporate Affairs at Tata Sons Private Limited. Since May 2018, Jaishankar was responsible for the Tata Group's global corporate affairs and international strategy development.
As a bureaucrat, Jaishankar served as the country’s top diplomat – the Foreign Secretary – between 2015 and 2018. Prior to that, he served as the Indian Ambassador to the United States between 2013 and 2015. The highly-regarded career diplomat was said to have enjoyed the Prime Minister's trust during his term in South Block and also had a good working relationship with External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj.
Jaishankar is largely credited with helping negotiate a peaceful resolution to the stand-off between Indian and Chinese troops at Doklam last year.
He is often credited with having played a key role in the negotiations between India and the United States in the signing of the 123 Agreement, also known as the Civil Nuclear Agreement between the two nuclear-armed countries. In addition to distinguishing between civilian and military nuclear capabilities, the Agreement allows the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to examine the country's civil nuclear facilities.
Jaishankar has also held postings including Indian Ambassador to China from 2009 to 2013, High Commissioner to Singapore from 2007 to 2009 and Ambassador to the Czech Republic from 2000 to 2004. He has also been in diplomatic assignments in embassies in Moscow, Colombo, Budapest and Tokyo, as well in the Ministry of External Affairs and the President's Secretariat.
In 2019, the Modi government awarded him a Padma Shri, the nation's fourth highest civilian award. A graduate of Delhi’s St. Stephen's College, Jaishankar has an MA in Political Science and an MPhil and PhD in International Relations from Jawaharlal Nehru University.