It will be a moment of pride and joy for Keralites as Venu Rajamony takes charge as Press Secretary of the President.
An orator and an author, Venu is a multifaceted personality, and is well versed in many languages, including Chinese. The Kochiite had joined the Foreign Service in 1986 after a two-year stint as a journalist.
Venu, the son of eminent lawyer K S Rajamony, was a staff correspondent of the Indian Express in Kochi. A very active participant of student politics, he was the vice-president of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) students’ union during 1981-82 and chairman of Ernakulam Maharaja’s College students’ union during 1980-81. He is currently handling issues related to multilateral funding agencies, including the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) in the Finance Ministry. A graduate in law and post-graduate in International Studies from JNU, he had served in the Indian missions in Hong Kong, Beijing, Washington and Geneva. He joined the Ministry of Finance as Joint Secretary (Multilateral Institutions) in the Department of Economic Affairs in October, 2010, after serving as the Consul General of India in Dubai for three years from 2007.
It was reported that he was handpicked by Pranab Mukherjee, the then Finance Minister for this important and prestigious assignment, as it includes the responsibility of formulating India’s policies towards the IMF, World Bank, Asian Development Bank, African Development Bank and International Fund for Agricultural Development etc. He has also worked in the Ministry of External Affairs as Joint Secretary (Energy security). He was Asia Foundation Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, Washington DC, during 2001-2002 and director in the office of Yashwant Sinha when the latter was the Foreign Minister.
Rajamony has authored a book ‘India and the UAE: In Celebration of a Legendary Friendship’ and a monograph titled “The India-China-US Triangle: A Soft Balance of Power in the Making”.