Ministry Of External Affairs In India

The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) is a Ministry under the Central Government of India. The Ministry is responsible for foreign relations. The Ministry represents India at all the meetings of the United Nations. Other Ministries when dealing with their foreign counterparts, must go through the Ministry Of External Affairs. The Ministry is also responsible for issuing Passports to the public.

SEE ALSO: Ministry Of Labour And Employment

Ministry of External Affairs History

During the British rule, The Ministry was known as the Ministry of External Affairs and Commonwealth Relations. The Ministry was renamed as the Ministry of External Affairs in 1948 by the then Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. He held the Ministry under his control, without appointing a separate cabinet grade Minister till 1964. There was a Secretary General appointed who used to advice the Prime Minister on matters relating to foreign affairs. Post Nehru’s tenure of 17 years as the Prime Minister of India, there was a separate Cabinet grade minister appointed for the Ministry of External Affairs in 1964.

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Ministry Of External Affairs In India

Current structure of the Ministry of External Affairs: There is a Cabinet grade Minister who is responsible for framing policies vis-à-vis foreign affairs. There is another Minister but with the grade of State Minister, who functions under the Minister of External Affairs. There are six secretaries appointed for different sections as mentioned below;

• Foreign Secretary
• Secretary for West
• Secretary for East
• Secretary for Economic Relations
• Secretary for Consul, Passport, Visa and Overseas Indian Affairs
• Joint Secretary for External Publicity and Spokesman

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List Of Ministers Of External Affairs

SI No	Name	Term of office
1	Jawaharlal Nehru	2-Sep-47	27-May-64
2	Gulzarilal Nanda	27-May-64	9-Jun-64
3	Lal Bahadur Shastri	9-Jun-64	17-Jul-64
4	Swaran Singh	18-Jul-64	14-Nov-66
5	M. C. Chagla	14-Nov-66	5-Sep-67
6	Indira Gandhi	6-Sep-67	13-Feb-69
7	Dinesh Singh	14-Feb-69	27-Jun-70
-4	Swaran Singh	27-Jun-70	10-Oct-74
8	Yashwantrao Chavan	10-Oct-74	24-Mar-77
9	Atal Bihari Vajpayee	26-Mar-77	28-Jul-79
10	Shyam Nandan Prasad Mishra	28-Jul-79	13-Jan-80
11	P. V. Narasimha Rao	14-Jan-80	19-Jul-84
-6	Indira Gandhi	19-Jul-84	31-Oct-84
12	Rajiv Gandhi	31-Oct-84	24-Sep-85
13	Bali Ram Bhagat	25-Sep-85	12-May-86
14	P. Shiv Shankar	12-May-86	22-Oct-86
15	N. D. Tiwari	22-Oct-86	25-Jul-87
-12	Rajiv Gandhi	25-Jul-87	25-Jun-88
-11	P. V. Narasimha Rao	25-Jun-88	2-Dec-89
16	V. P. Singh	2-Dec-89	5-Dec-89
17	I. K. Gujral	5-Dec-89	10-Nov-90
18	Vidya Charan Shukla	21-Nov-90	20-Feb-91
19	Madhavsinh Solanki	21-Jun-91	31-Mar-92
-11	P. V. Narasimha Rao	31-Mar-92	18-Jan-93
-7	Dinesh Singh	18-Jan-93	10-Feb-95
20	Pranab Mukherjee	10-Feb-95	16-May-96
21	Sikander Bakht	21-May-96	1-Jun-96
-17	I. K. Gujral	1-Jun-96	18-Mar-98
-9	Atal Bihari Vajpayee	19-Mar-98	5-Dec-98
22	Jaswant Singh	5-Dec-98	23-Jun-02
23	Yashwant Sinha	1-Jul-02	22-May-04
24	Natwar Singh	22 May 2004[1]	6 November 2005[2]
25	Manmohan Singh	6-Nov-05	24-Oct-06
-20	Pranab Mukherjee	24 October 2006[3]	22-May-09
26	S. M. Krishna	22-May-09	26-Oct-12
27	Salman Khurshid	28-Oct-12	26-May-14
28	Sushma Swaraj	26-May-14	Present

Development Partnership Administration (DPA):

Development Partnership Administration, DPA, is a division under the Ministry of External Affairs. India decided to assist poor countries with development; hence DPA was formed in 2013. It was established to facilitate effective execution of projects with the help of the Indian Government and professionals from various backgrounds. India has so far assisted its neighboring countries of Bhutan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka. DPA is not restricted to just the neighboring countries. India has assisted with the development of African and Latin American countries too.

Ministry Of External Affairs App

The Ministry has launched a mobile application considering the rise in the number of smartphone users. The Ministry launched applications for both Android and iOS platforms. The application was launched to provide all information related to the Ministry under the same platform.

The application is a gateway for information related to Visa, Passport, Embassies, Foreign Relations and so on that are related to external affairs. The Application comes in handy for NRIs. A section called ‘Ask your Minister’ is created, to enable citizens interact directly with the External Affairs Minister. The mobile application provides all information related to Kailash Manasarovar Yatra and Haj, including details regarding the application process, flights, hotel details and FAQs.

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