The record

2004–07 · The India-US nuclear deal

As head of the Americas division he was among the early negotiators of the civil nuclear agreement that ended India’s nuclear isolation. Tata Sons later described his role as key. (Tata Sons · Gulf News)

2017 · Doklam

A 73-day standoff with China on the Doklam plateau ended on 28 August 2017 with an agreed disengagement, while he was Foreign Secretary. Credit is shared: reports also name the then Ambassador to China, Vijay Gokhale, as central to the talks. (Kathmandu Post · The Wire)

2020 · Vande Bharat Mission

30.9 lakh people brought home by late 2020

The pandemic repatriation programme. The Ministry reported over three million returns within months of the first flight on 7 May 2020. (Daily Pioneer)

2022 · Operation Ganga, Ukraine

22,500 citizens returned

Ninety flights, fourteen of them by the Air Force, through Romania, Poland, Hungary and Slovakia. He gave the figure to the Rajya Sabha on 15 March 2022. (Business Today)

2023 · Operation Kaveri, Sudan

4,097 people evacuated, 136 of them foreign nationals

Seventeen Air Force flights and five Navy sorties from Port Sudan to Jeddah. The figure is the Ministry’s final count to Parliament. He tweeted 3,862 when the operation closed in May 2023. (PIB New India Samachar · MEA, Lok Sabha annexure)

2023 · Operation Ajay, Israel

1,343 people evacuated

Flights from Israel after the attacks of 7 October 2023, including OCI card holders and foreign nationals. Later operations brought out 3,597 people from Iran and 818 from Israel in 2025 (Operation Sindhu). (MEA, Lok Sabha annexure)

2023 · The G20 presidency

He chaired the G20 foreign ministers in March, where divisions over Ukraine prevented a joint statement. At the September summit the New Delhi Declaration was adopted by consensus and the African Union became a permanent member. (The Wire · PBS / AP)

2023–24 · Voice of the Global South

125 countries at the second summit

Three summits hosted by India, in January 2023, November 2023 and August 2024, to carry developing-country priorities into the G20 and beyond. (PIB New India Samachar)

2024 · The patrolling agreement with China

On 21 October 2024 India and China agreed patrolling arrangements at Depsang and Demchok, ending the last friction points of the 2020 standoff. He said the two sides had gone back to the 2020 position; analysts noted it was unclear whether all earlier patrolling rights were restored. (Business Today)

2014–26 · Passports and consular reach

545 Passport Kendras, from 77 a decade earlier

Passports issued rose from 91 lakh in 2014 to 1.46 crore in 2024. In June 2025 he launched Passport Seva 2.0 and the national rollout of e-passports. (Business Today · News Arena)

2026 · BRICS chair

India took the BRICS chair on 1 January 2026, and he hosted the foreign ministers in New Delhi on 14 and 15 May. (The Tribune)

The debates

Confidence or combativeness?

His sharper public style drew the “wolf warrior” comparison from critics after his 2023 exchanges with Pakistan’s foreign minister. He has called it confidence, and some scholars argue that softer language was read as weakness. (Scroll)

China

A 2023 podcast remark asking whether a smaller economy should pick a fight with a bigger one was criticised by some veterans, including a former Navy chief, as defeatist. Supporters read it as realism about the power gap. (The Wire)

Russian oil

He defended India’s purchases of discounted Russian crude after 2022 as a duty to Indian consumers. Ukraine’s foreign minister called them morally inappropriate. In 2025 he described US tariffs linked to those purchases as perplexing. (TBS / AFP · Scroll)

Operation Sindoor and the ceasefire

He told the Rajya Sabha in July 2025 that there was no third-party mediation in the May 2025 ceasefire with Pakistan. The United States President has repeatedly claimed a role, so the account remains contested. (The Tribune)

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