How India Functions Under Modi – Part Two

Reuters photo

By

Ratnesh Dwivedi

Information Office of the Presidential Office of India

Background

The President’s Secretariat: The President of India, currently Pranab Mukherjee, is the Head of the State and exercises powers as defined in the Constitution of India. The President’s Secretariat provides secretarial assistance to the President in discharging constitutional, ceremonial and other State responsibilities.

The President’s Secretariat is headed by the Secretary to the President who is assisted by a team of officers. The President’s Secretariat includes Secretariat, Household and Garden work establishments. These wings perform tasks relating to constitutional, administrative, hospitality of State guests, petitions on wide ranging subjects from general public and maintenance of Rashtrapati Bhavan, the President’s Estate and Gardens.

All matters requiring attention of the President in matters relating to executive power and powers under statutes or relating to appointments of constitutional authorities are received in the President’s Secretariat from the nodal Ministries concerned and submitted to the President through the Secretary to the President. Once the President has assented to the proposed course of action, the files go back to the concerned Ministries.

Press Secretary: For all matters related to the Press, the Press Secretary is the nodal officer. He is the nodal point between the President and the Media.

Currently, Venu Rajamony, DPS, is the Press Secretary to the President of India and is concerned with all matters relating to the Press.

Organization:

The President’s Secretariat has a Secretary to the President. Ms Omita Paul currently holds the post. Contact details are: Phone – 011- 23013324, 23014930 – 4211, 4387, Email: [email protected]

There are various officers who deal with the Press and work on the Information wing.

The Press Secretary is the chief officer looking after the press related matters. As above, the current Press Secretary is Mr. Venu Rajamony, DPS, is the Press Secretary to the President of India. Contact details are: Rashtrapati Bhavan, New Delhi, India – 110 004. Telephone – 011 -23016535 4322, Email: [email protected]

There is also a Deputy Press Secretary to the President of India, Ms Shamima Siddiqui.

For maintaining social media of the President’s House: Shri Abhijeet Rai.

CA-II, P-I & P-II, Managing Website of the President of India and Monitoring of the official facebook and Youtube accounts of Rashtrapati Bhavan, Sports, Speeches, Estate Officer.

Public Relations Officers, Visitor Management–

Shri Anupam Kumar Nag, Public Relation Officer, Visitor Management Cell

Matters relating to visit to Rashtrapati Bhavan, Shri Kumar Samresh, Public Relation Officer, Museum

Central Public Information Officer 

Shri J.G. Subramanian (Central Public Information Officer)

The President’s Secretariat, Rashtrapati Bhavan, New Delhi-110004

Telephone: 011-23015321 Extn: 4285(O)

E-mail: [email protected]

Central Assistant Public Information Officer         

Shri S.N.S. Prakash (Central Assistant Public Information Officer)

The President’s Secretariat, Rashtrapati Bhavan, New Delhi-110004

Telephone: 011-23015321 Extn: 4625(O)

FB page https://www.facebook.com/presidentofindiarb

Venu Rajamony, a 1986 batch officer of the Indian Foreign Service, is the Press Secretary to the President of India. A career diplomat, Mr. Rajamony has served as Joint Secretary, heading the Multilateral Institutions Division of the Department of Economic Affairs in the Finance Ministry.

Mr. Rajamony joined the IFS after a two-year stint as journalist with an English daily. He is a fluent speaker of the Chinese language, he has served in the Indian missions in Hong Kong as well as the Embassy of India in Beijing for around nine years. He worked in the Indian mission to the U.N. in Geneva as officer responsible for human rights and humanitarian matters. In 1996, he was elected Rapporteur of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights representing India. He has also served in the Indian Embassy in Washington DC as official spokesperson and in the External Publicity Division of the Ministry of External Affairs headed by the official spokesperson of the Ministry. Mr. Rajamony was Director (Chef de Cabinet) in the Office of Foreign Minister Yashwant Sinha from 2002 to 2004.

On China:

President Mukherjee’s visit to China in 2016 was widely covered. It included discussions on economic investments and cooperation.

The Press secretary Mr. Rajamony is considered an expert on China and the following report he wrote in 2002 is useful.

President woos Chinese investors

India on Wednesday promised a conducive environment for Chinese investors and urged them to participate in ‘Make in India’ and other flagship programmes of the government to boost bilateral trade.

“We will facilitate your efforts to make your investments in India profitable. We must take advantage of the opportunities that abound in the growth of both our economies,” said President Pranab Mukherjee addressing a meeting of the India-China Business Forum here on the second day of his four-day visit to China.

“President Pranab Mukherjee arrived here today on a four-day visit to China that will see significant political and economic push to bilateral ties while irritants like Beijing’s opposition to India’s membership of NSG and the blocking of UN bid to blacklist JeM chief Masood Azhar as a global terrorist will also figure.”

Ratnesh Dwivedi

Ratnesh Dwivedi transferred his skills of the Media Industry into his passion for writing, teaching and commenting on Global Affairs. He has seen the changing face of global politics as a budding media professional who regularly comments on the changing equation between U.S., Middle East and South Asia. He has been writing on the U.S. led strike on Iraq and post war reconstruction in Iraq and Afghanistan. Later he continued his association with President George W Bush as a Charter Member of the George W Bush Presidential Center, Texas. The center is home to documentation of President Bush’s double tenure and consists of a library and museum.

Apart from his association with the Bush Center, Ratnesh Dwivedi is associated with several other organizations. He is Chapter Member with the Internet Society, a global non-profit organization which works for popularity of the internet. Ratnesh is also associated with the European Communication Research and Education Association, a premier media research organization in Europe. He is also an Individual Member with the Institute of English Studies, University of London and has a non-member status with the American Astronomical Society.

He has authored five books. ‘The Story of an Intern’ is a reportage book of the struggle of an intern in the big bad media world, while ‘The Cosmic Mask’ is a compilation of nine space fiction stories which he self published with an Amazon company. Third and fourth are awarded academic books. His fifth book on US Intelligence and Cost of War was released in 2015.

Ratnesh Dwivedi bears the honor of attending several high rated workshops of NASA and continuously follows NASA updates. Ratnesh loves to be categorized as a prolific writer, commentator and academician.

Ratnesh Dwivedi attained his Masters Degree from the University of Lucknow in Journalism and Mass Communication in 1999 and is currently pursuing a doctorate on “International Terrorism and Television Channels: Operation and Regulation of Television Channels During Coverage of 9/11 and 26/11” from Amity University, India under the supervision of Dr Sarah T Partlow, Director and Professor at Idaho State University, U.S.

He has been associated with Amity University, where he led a project to set up Community Radio Station and TV Studio apart from his teaching assignment. He is widely published academician in the field of Media and Communication with nearly 30 publications and presentations in countries such as Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Germany, Slovenia, Czech Republic, Britain, USA and India.

He is serving as Director-CRS at Teerthankar Mahaveer University in India. He is Consultant with a NJ, a U.S. based Energy Firm, Advisors Energy Group and serves as Country Manager-India with London, UK based Cyber Security Firm-Orion-SAS. He reports for a China based think tank and contributes for global online magazine Tuck. He is Head of India with an Italian based CounterTerrorism entity which works with partner agencies around the globe. He lives in New Delhi with his wife and son.