📕Vijay Gokhale, the man who will helm India’s diplomacy as Foreign Secretary for the next two years, is known for working “below the radar.”
📕Thus, by the time his appointment was announced on January 1, he had already been at work, quietly, in South Block.
📕The appointment of Mr. Gokhale, a 1981 batch officer, will not rule many feathers as he is the seniormost among his peers.
📕He was in the same batch with India’s High Commissioner to the U.K. Y.K Sinha, and India’s Ambassador to Ja pan Sujan Chinoy
📕within hours, the Palestinian Foreign Ministry announced that they had withdrawn their man in Islamabad and regretted his actions.
📕 As Secretary (Economic Relations) since October, Mr. Gokhale was at several important meetings and dealing with upcoming visits. ( @spardhavishwa )
📕like those of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in midJanuary, ASEAN leaders at the end of January, and King Abdullah II of Jordan thereafter.
📕When India expressed its anger at the Palestinian envoy to Pakistan’s appearance at a public rally with Hafiz Saeed, it was Mr. Gokhale, whose portfolio includes West Asia and North Africa, who summoned the Palestinian Ambassador in New Delhi.
📕Mr. Gokhale is understood to have conveyed the tough message in his characteristically understated, but effective, manner:
📕 Mr. Gokhale’s reputation for conducting negotiations in Beijing, in tandem with National Security Adviser Ajit Doval and Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar during the Doklam crisis last year, is also well known, and both Indian and Chinese leaders appreciated his role.
📕Many of Mr. Gokhale’s predecessors have also been China experts: most notably Mr. Jaishankar, Shivshankar Menon and ShyamSaran,
📕but a few have the unifocal
breadth and depth of his skills and experience in handling Beijing.
📕He has had two “desk postings” in New Delhi, as Director (China and East Asia) in the Ministry ofExternal Affairs, and then Joint Secretary (East Asia).
[ Source-_The Hindu ]
