Vijay Gokhale takes over as Foreign Secretary
He is the fourth top Indian diplomat to have served as the country’s envoy to China.
Vijay Gokhale, a 1981 batch Indian Foreign Service officer, took over as Foreign Secretary on Monday. He succeeds S Jaishankar, who served three years as India’s top diplomat.
An early morning start! Shri Vijay Gokhale, an Indian Foreign Service Officer of the 1981 batch, took over as Foreign Secretary of India today morning. He was Secretary (ER) at the Ministry before taking up his present assignment. Profile at https://t.co/WRXKcIYJKj pic.twitter.com/Alox9OvQEp
— Raveesh Kumar (@MEAIndia) January 29, 2018
Gokhale was the economic relations secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs before taking the top job. He has also held the post of India’s ambassador to China from January 2016 to October 2017 –
the fourth foreign secretary to have served as envoy to Beijing – and before that was the top Indian envoy in Malaysia and Germany.
Jaishankar was appointed the foreign secretary on January 29, 2015, for a two-year period. He was then given a one-year extension in January 2017.