Jaishankar - arranged Modi's China visit, now minister

S Jaishankar has been inducted in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's cabinet, one-and-a-half-year after he retired as Foreign Secretary.

Jaishankar, the son of prominent strategic affairs analyst and civil servant K Subrahmanyam, joined the Indian Foreign Service in 1977.

He developed a rapport with Modi while arranging the latter's visit to China in 2011, as Chief Minister of Gujarat.

Modi appointed Jaishankar as the Foreign Secretary on January 28, 2015, soon after he took over as Prime Minister, shunting out Jaishankar's predecessor Sujatha Singh from office at least eight months before the end of her term.

Jaishankar played a key role in shaping Modi Government's foreign policy during its first term – including overseeing Prime Minister's landmark visit to the US in September 2014 and the then American President Barack Obama's visit to India in January 2015.

After taking over as Foreign Secretary, he initially led New Delhi's engagement with Islamabad till the series of terror attacks in 2016 dashed the hope for restart of stalled dialogue between the two neighbours. He also led India's diplomatic campaign against Pakistan after September 2016 terror attack at Indian Army brigade headquarters at Uri in Kashmir and Indian Army's retaliatory surgical strike on a terror camp across the Line of Control.

Just before his retirement in January 2018, Jaishankar and his successor Vijay Gokhale, who was then New Delhi's envoy to Beijing, were instrumental in bringing India-China ties back on track after it hit a new low over the 72-day-long military stand-off at Doklam Plateau in western Bhutan.

Jaishankar was India’s ambassador to the Czech Republic from 2000 till 2004 and High Commission to Singapore from 2007 till 2009. He headed the Americas Division in the headquarters of the Ministry of External Affairs from 2004 till 2007, when he actively took part in India’s engagement with the US for the civil nuclear cooperation agreement.

He was India's ambassador to China from August 2009 to December 2013 and New Delhi's envoy to Washington D C from December 2013 till January 2015.