New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his second term has decided to retain those in his office. After Principal secretary Nripendra Misra, National Security Adviser (NSA) Ajit Doval, Secretary Bhaskar Khulbe and Additional Secretary PK Mishra, even his private secretary and officer on special duty (OSD) have been given an extension.
The Appointments Committee of Cabinet issued orders on Tuesday to reappoint Hiren Joshi, SK Singhla, Rajeev Topno and Prateek Doshi. Joshi has been appointed OSD (Communication & Information Technology) at the rank of a joint secretary and Doshi as OSD (Research & Strategy).
“The competent authority has approved the appointment of Shri Prateek Doshi, a private person as OSD(R&S) to Prime Minister in level-14 (joint secretary rank) with effect from June 14 on co-terminus basis or till further orders, whichever is earlier,” said the order.
Similar orders were issued for the other officers too.
Both Doshi and Joshi are private persons who were hand-picked by Modi in his first term.
An electronics engineer from Pune with a PhD from the Indian Institute of Information Technology & Management in Gwalior, Joshi has been part of Team Modi from 2008. He is credited with handling the Prime Minister's social media presence.
Doshi, a Singapore Management School graduate, interned with Modi's Gujarat CMO and has been integral to the PMO since 2014.
Topno, a Gujarat cadre IAS officer of 1996 batch, was appointed as Personal Secretary to the PM. Singla, a 1997 batch IFS officer, is the other personal secretary. He served in the Indian Embassy in Israel’s Tel Aviv before being called to serve in the PMO in Modi's first term.
This is the third stint in the PMO for the Jharkhand (then Bihar)-born Topno. He was a director in Manmohan Singh's PMO and was one of the few officers who continued in Modi’s PMO.
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