india

Updated: Oct 22, 2019 22:29 IST

Senior journalist Ashok Malik, a former press secretary to the president, was on Tuesday appointed policy advisor in the external affairs ministry with the rank of additional secretary, according to an order from the department of personnel and training.

The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet approved the appointment of Malik, a distinguished fellow in the Observer Research Foundation, on contractual basis for a period of two years.

Malik’s two-year stint as press secretary to President Ram Nath Kovind ended earlier this year.

For the appointment of Malik, 50, a post of director in the Indian Foreign Service (IFS) Grade IV was temporarily upgraded to the level of additional secretary level, the order said. His pay and allowances will be equivalent to that of an additional secretary.

The appointment, the process for which was completed within three days, has caused some heartburn within the IFS, people familiar with developments said. The government has in recent years focused on the lateral entry of experts in several ministries but the people cited above noted that the external affairs ministry was different as foreign policy needs to be handled by domain experts.

Malik was awarded the Padma Shri, the country’s fourth highest civilian honour, in 2016, and has written on subjects such as politics, economy and foreign policy in national and international publications. He graduated from Presidency College in Kolkata and began his journalistic career in the same city with The Telegraph newspaper in 1991.