He will take over from Navtej Sarna who will become joint secretary (disarmament) in the external affairs ministry.
Central Reserve Police Force personnel posted at the entrance did not recognise the new petroleum minister.
The PM held wide-ranging talks with the Sultan of Oman and signed eight agreements, including pacts on cooperation in the field of defence, health and tourism.
The United States is committed to ensuring India's entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group, a top American diplomat said on Wednesday, expressing "regret" that his government was unsuccessful in making it a member of the grouping at its pleanary in Seoul last week.
The new Ministers of State sworn in by President Ram Nath Kovind at a ceremony in the Rashtrapati Bhavan include Virendra Kumar, Anant Kumar Hegde and Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, former IAS officers Alphons Kannanthanam and R K Singh, former diplomat Hardeep Puri and ex-Mumbai police chief Satyapal Singh. Two other new faces are Ashwini Kumar Choubey, a member of the Lok Sabha from Bihar, and Shiv Pratap Shukla from Uttar Pradesh.
'Vijay Gokhale's appointment as foreign secretary can be regarded as a certain 'adjustment' that could make a difference to the poor climate of India-China relations,' says Ambassdor M K Bhadrakumar.
Backlash in the United States against contracting of jobs to foreign service providers will not significantly affect business process outsourcing trends, IT research and advisory firm Gartner Inc has said.\n\n\n\n
A 1966-batch Indian Foreign Service officer, Shashank succeeds Kanwal Sibal, who retired on Sunday after an 18-month stint.
US career diplomat Jeffrey Davidow is likely to be the next ambassador to India in place of Robert Blackwill, who recently resigned to pursue academics at the Harvard University, sources said.
'It is to be fervently hoped that a person as rational and brilliant as Hamid Ansari will not be allowed to wilt and simply wither away.'
Ajit Doval is now India's all-powerful security boss. This concentration of power disrupts our layered security system. Will it not weaken whatever remains of the power and authority of the home, defence and finance ministers? asks Shekhar Gupta.
It is the "poor" Hindi translation of English comprehension passages and other questions of Civil Services Aptitude Test that is bothering the aspirants, and not the English part of the paper, Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad on Sunday said.
Scores of National Students' Union Of India activists on Saturday staged a protest outside the residence of Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, demanding scrapping of Civil Services Aptitude Test.
'It seems likely that the February 2019 crisis is over.'
Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde on Tuesday cancelled his meeting with a senior United States Congressional delegation ostensibly as a mark of protest against the treatment meted out to India's deputy consul general in New York.
'It will take years for the mission in Islamabad to recover as a top-notch diplomatic establishment,' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Nirmala Sitharaman's elevation not only to full Cabinet minister but also pitchforking her to the elite Cabinet Committee on Security group with the defence portfolio is undoubtedly the biggest takeaway from Sunday's reshuffle, says Rajeev Sharma.
This shows the strict pattern of civil services examination conducted by the UPSC for selecting country's top bureaucrats
'The high court notice could go some way in easing the vitiated civil-military relationship, and the trust deficit between civil servants and the military.'
'The first 55 years of Natwar Singh's life give a fascinating narrative of our diplomacy,' says Ambassador B S Prakash after reading One Life is Not Enough.
'My heart weeps for Vajpayee, the prince among poets, the king among politicians and the emperor among statesmen,' says Sudhir Bisht.
It's something to remember as New Delhi welcomes Sheikh Hasina, says Sunanda K Datta-Ray.
English marks in the Civil Service Aptitude Test-II will not be included for gradation or merit and 2011 candidates may get a second chance to appear for the test next year, the government announced in Lok Sabha today seeking to defuse the Union Public Service Commission row that has seen the aspirants on warpath.
The government appealed to protesting Civil Services aspirants to be "patient" and said it would not tolerate any injustice to them on the basis of language.
Government has told the Delhi high court that Devyani Khobragade obtained US and Indian passports for her two daughters in violation of law.
'There are thousand ways to pressure Pakistan to make it behave.' 'Going to the ICJ was the worst possible option,' says Colonel Anil A Athale.
'Soon enough, we were out shouted. The journalist had a multiple agenda -- he berated the Government, the bureaucracy in general and the UPSC system that selected them.'
The chairman of the committee, A K Mathur, sought abolishment of the two-year edge accorded to the IAS officers for empanelment, compared to other services, saying it was an 'archaic concept'.
The 7th CPC places the Indian Police Service (and, almost in passing, the Indian Forest Service) on a level with the Indian Administrative Service, leaving the military out in the cold.
Modi's visit to Spain will be first visit by an Indian prime minister since 1988.
Upset over the Devyani Khobragade episode, India on Wednesday raised with the United States its concerns over "trafficking" visas issued to family members of Sangita Richard, the absconding maid of the Indian diplomat whose arrest had triggered a row between the two countries.
Indian employees of the United States embassy and consulates in India are being grossly underpaid in comparison to their American counterparts working in these missions, according to information made available to the government.
'We could quibble with each other whether there were 25 terrorists killed or 250 killed.' 'The message is more that India undertook such an aerial attack and this attack has actually changed the paradigm.' 'The change in paradigm is that India has shown by the surgical strike in 2016 and the aerial strike of 2019 that we will not just sit back and tolerate terrorism which killed so many of our people.' 'We will hit back and by hitting back we will raise the costs of such activities.'
"Something will happen", said External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid on Sunday on the prospects of an early resolution of the stand-off arising out of the arrest of senior diplomat Devyani Khobragade in the United States.
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