The Minister of External Affairs (or simply, the Foreign Minister, in

Hindi Hindi ( Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been ...

''Videsh Mantri'' ) is the head of the Ministry of External Affairs of the

Government of India The Government of India (ISO: ; often abbreviated as GoI), known as the Union Government or Central Government but often simply as the Centre, is the national government of the Republic of India, a federal democracy located in South Asia, ...

. One of the senior-most offices in the

Union Cabinet The Union Council of Ministers Article 58 of the ''Constitution of India'' is the principal executive organ of the Government of India, which is responsible for being the senior decision making body of the executive branch. It is chaired by t ...

, 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 India has diplomatic relations with 201 states/dependencies around the globe, having 199 missions and posts operating globally while plans to open new missions in 2020–21 hosted by 11 UN Member States. The Ministry of External Affairs ( ...

. Occasionally, the Foreign Minister is assisted by a Minister of State for External Affairs or the lower-ranked Deputy Minister of External Affairs. India's first Prime Minister,

Jawaharlal Nehru Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru (; ; ; 14 November 1889 – 27 May 1964) was an Indian anti-colonial nationalist, secular humanist, social democrat— * * * * and author who was a central figure in India during the middle of the 20t ...

, 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. 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 Sushma Swaraj () (''née'' Sharma; 14 February 1952 – 6 August 2019) was an Indian lawyer, politician, and diplomat who served as the Minister of External Affairs of India in the first Narendra Modi government from 2014 to 2019. She is only ...

of the

Bharatiya Janata Party The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP; ; ) is a political party in India, and one of the two major Indian political parties alongside the Indian National Congress. Since 2014, it has been the ruling political party in India under Narendra Mod ...

on 30 May 2019.

List of External Affairs Ministers

List of Ministers of State

References

External links

Official Website of Ministry of External Affairs

MEA Library
{{DEFAULTSORT:External_Affairs_(India) Minister Union ministers of India

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

Ministers for External Affairs of India Ministry of External Affairs (India) Lists of government ministers of India

List of External Affairs Ministers

List of Ministers of State

See also

References

External links