New Delhi: For the first time in its history, India’s ministry of external affairs will be recruiting people with an academic background and from the private sector to its policy planning division to introduce “new thinking” in the system without the recruits having to sit for government exams.
“Foreign Secretary informed us that Government was finally implementing one of our recommendations for lateral entry into MEA,” tweeted Shashi Tharoor, who heads the parliamentary standing committee on external affairs, on Thursday.
“MEA will advertise posts for academics & pvt sector candidates to apply for jobs in PolicyPlanning&Research. Good 2 let new thinking into MEA,” he said in another tweet.
Lateral recruitment into the foreign services of countries such as the US and Russia is common. Karl Inderfurth, US assistant secretary of state for South Asian Affairs from August 1997 to January 2001, was a journalist with the ABC television network between 1981 and 1991.
Deposing before the parliamentary committee, foreign secretary S. Jaishankar and other top officials of the MEA said the ministry will advertise for positions in its policy planning division, which is the “think-tank” of the ministry.
“Though there are lateral recruitments from the Indian army and the Indian Air Force and other such organisations into the MEA, it is for the first time it plans to advertise seeking talent from outside government,” Tharoor said after the meeting.
The present cadre strength of the Indian Foreign Service stands at about 770 officers (as of December 2014) who enter service after clearing the Union Public Service Commission exam. They man around 162 Indian missions and posts abroad and the various posts in the ministry in New Delhi. In addition, the ministry has another 400 officials who make up the support staff and include interpreters and legal staff.
China in comparison has some 6,000 diplomats while Brazil has 3,000.
The ministry took in 32 “officer trainee diplomats” in 2014, compared with the 8-15 officer trainees it used to induct some 15 years ago. The increased intake is mainly aimed at bolstering India’s diplomatic staff strength given the country’s rising profile and multifarious interests.
