5 things to know about Narendra Modi’s private secretary Rajeev Topno

THE Central government on Wednesday appointed 1996 batch Gujarat cadre IAS and current director in prime minister’s office (PMO) Rajeev Topno as private secretary to prime minister Narendra Modi. Topno has been working in Manmohan Singh’s PMO since June 2009, i.e. a month after UPA-II came to power. Here are 5 things you may like to know about Topno.
a) 40-year-old Topno originally hails from the state of Bihar. He is a bachelor of arts before getting selected as an IAS.
b) As Gujarat cadre IAS, he was district development officer in Bhuj (2000-2003), and collector in Bharuch (2003-2005) and Vadodara (2005-2008).
c) Between 2008 and 2009, he also served as joint chief executive officer of Gujarat State Disaster Management Authority.
d) Topno joined the PMO in June 2009 as deputy secretary before getting elevated as director in July 2010. In PMO, he looked after administration and assisted joint secretary Vini Mahajan and then Dheeraj Gupta.
e) Topno also served as the managing director of iNDEXTb and played a key role in managing the Vibrant Gujarat summit of 2009. iNDEXTb was set up with an intention to function as a facilitating organization to ensure hassle-free experience for a prospective investor in Gujarat.
Meanwhile, the government has become ultra-cautious in choosing private secretaries to key union ministers. According to reports, IPS officer Alok Singh’s name as private secretary to home minister Rajnath Singh has been put on hold, as the cop had worked as PS to the former external affairs minister Salman Khurshid.
On Tuesday, the government had appointed two IAS officers, Sameer Verma and BVRC Purushottam as private secretaries of union ministers Ms Uma Bharti and M Venkaiah Naidu respectively.
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