Minister of External Affairs (India)
Head of the Ministry of External Affairs / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The Minister of External Affairs (or simply, the Foreign Minister Hindi: Videsh Mantri) is the head of the Ministry of External Affairs of the Government of India. One of the senior-most offices in the Union Cabinet, the chief responsibility of the Foreign Minister is to represent India and its government in the international community. The Foreign Minister also plays an important role in determining Indian foreign policy. Occasionally, the Foreign Minister is assisted by a Minister of State for External Affairs or the lower-ranked Deputy Minister of External Affairs.
Minister of External Affairs | |
---|---|
Videsh Mantrī | |
Ministry of External Affairs | |
Abbreviation | EAM |
Member of | Cabinet of India Cabinet Committee on Security |
Reports to | President of India Prime Minister of India Parliament of India |
Appointer | President of India on the recommendation of the Prime Minister of India |
Formation | 1947 (1947) |
First holder | Jawaharlal Nehru |
Deputy | Minister of State for External Affairs |
India's first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, also held the Foreign Minister post throughout his 17-year premiership of the country; he remains the country's longest-serving Foreign Minister. Several other Prime Ministers have since held the additional charge of foreign minister, but never has any other cabinet minister held additional charge of the office -- although during Nehru's premiership V. K. Krishna Menon was acknowledged as de facto Foreign Minister beyond his official designation as Defence Minister. There have been a number of Foreign Ministers who went on to become the Prime Minister like Atal Bihari Vajpayee, P. V. Narasimha Rao and I. K. Gujral.
The current Minister of External Affairs is Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, succeeding Sushma Swaraj of the Bharatiya Janata Party on 30 May 2019.