Foreign Secretary Vinay Mohan Kwatra
Credit: PTI Photo
New Delhi: Foreign Secretary Vinay Mohan Kwatra will continue to lead the diplomats of India till October 31 as the government has granted him an extension of service for six months.
Kwatra’s two-year-long tenure as the foreign secretary would have ended on April 30. The government, however, issued a notification on Tuesday, stating that the appointment committee of the Union Cabinet had approved an extension in service of Kwatra, an Indian Foreign Service (IFS) officer of the 1988 batch, for a period of six more months or until further orders.
The government approved the extension of service to the top diplomat just ahead of the announcement of the schedule of the Lok Sabha polls by the Election Commission.
The Model Code of Conduct will come into force as soon as the EC will declare the schedule of the elections, imposing restrictions on the government to make new appointments or grant extensions to the serving bureaucrats.
Kwatra took over as the foreign secretary on May 1, 2022, succeeding Harsh Vardhan Shringla, who was later appointed as the chief coordinator for the 18th G20 summit that Prime Minister Narendra Modi hosted in New Delhi in September 2023.
After Kwatra, New Delhi’s former envoy to Beijing, Vikram Misri, who joined the IFS in 1989, is known to be among the top contenders for the office of the foreign secretary. Misri is currently serving as the deputy national security advisor.
Speculation is also rife about the possibility of Kwatra being appointed as India’s ambassador to the United States after the end of his term as the foreign secretary. After top diplomat Taranjit Singh Sandhu’s recently retired, New Delhi’s diplomatic mission in Washington DC is currently headed by Chargé d'Affaires Sripriya Ranganathan. The government is apparently planning to appoint a successor of Sandhu only after the Lok Sabha polls.