New Delhi: Novelist and diplomat Vikas Swarup, who wrote the book ‘Q&A’ that went on to be made into Oscar winning film Slumdog Millionaire has been named the new spokesman of India’s Ministry of External Affairs, a person familiar with the matter said on Thursday.

He succeeds Syed Akbaruddin who will be looking after the organisation of the third India-Africa Summit that will be held in New Delhi, India’s biggest outreach event for the resource-rich continent in which India is looking to host all 54 African heads of state and government, in October.

Swarup is currently joint secretary in charge of UN (Political) and is expected to take over his new assignment in the middle of next month. He wrote Q&A — his first novel — in two months, when he was posted in London.

Swarup joined the Indian Foreign Service (IFS) in 1986 and has served in Turkey, the US, Ethiopia, the UK and South Africa. He also served as Consul General of India in Osaka-Kobe, Japan from 2009 to 2013.

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