The External Affairs Minister or the Indian Foreign Minister is a position of office at cabinet level within the Government of India. The chief responsibility of the External Affairs Minister is to represent India and its government in the international community. The minister heads the "Ministry of External Affairs." Occasionally, a junior minister designated to the post of Minister of State for External Affairs assists the External Affairs Minister. In some cases, there have been Deputy External Affairs Ministers at a secondary level.

The External Affairs ministry is run by bureaucratic officials from the Indian Foreign Service. The head of this department is the Foreign Secretary. This department is also responsible for international Diplomatic postings. The position of external affairs minister hold significance in the sense that, when this position have been vacant, the Prime Ministers have been the only person to have held additional charge as External Affairs Minister. There have been a number of External Affairs Ministers who later went on to become the Prime Ministers of India.

A country's foreign policy, also called the foreign relations policy, consists of self-interest strategies chosen by the state to safeguard its national interests and to achieve its goals within international relations milieu.^{[citation needed]} The approaches are strategically employed to interact with other countries. In recent times, due to the deepening level of globalization and transnational activities, the states will also have to interact with non-state actors. The aforementioned interaction is evaluated and monitored in attempts to maximize benefits of multilateral international cooperation. Since the national interests are paramount, foreign policies are designed by the government through high-level decision making processes. National interests accomplishment can occur as a result of peaceful cooperation with other nations, or through exploitation. Usually, creating foreign policy is the job of the head of government and the foreign minister (or equivalent). In some countries the legislature also has considerable oversight.

Salman Khurshid (born 1 January 1953) is an Indian politician belonging to the Indian National Congress, a lawyer, and a writer who has been elected from Farrukhabad Lok Sabha constituency in the General Election of 2009. He belongs to the Farrukhabad area. He is presently the Cabinet Minister of the Ministry of Law and Justice and Ministry of Minority Affairs. Prior to this he was elected to the 10th Lok Sabha (1991–1996) from the Farrukhabad Lok Sabha constituency. He became the Union Deputy Minister of Commerce in June 1991, and later became the Union Minister of State of External Affairs (Jan. 1993-June 1996). Before that he had started his political career in 1981 as an Officer on Special Duty in the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) under the prime ministership of Mrs. Indira Gandhi.

Born in Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, he is the son of Khurshed Alam Khan, the former Union Minister of External affairs, Government of India, and maternal grandson of Dr. Zakir Hussain, the third President of India.

Sartaj Aziz (Urdu: سرتاج عزيز; born February 7, 1929), PhD, is a world recognized Pakistani economist, peace and Pakistan Movement activist, serving as the 21st Treasure Minister in two non-consecutive terms from 1990 to 1993, and from 1997 until 1998. Aziz also served as the 21st Foreign Minister of Pakistan from 1998 until being removed as a result of military coup d'état against Prime minister Nawaz Sharif on October 12, 1999.

Educated and graduating from Punjab University of Pakistan and the Harvard University of United States, Aziz drove Pakistan's economy on free-market economics principles, capitalism, and privatization. In addition, he also advised the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on foreign policy elements, while formulating financial policies for the Ministry of Finance and coordinating economic development through Economic Coordination Committee. Aziz took active part in Pakistan Movement as its leading activist during his college years, becoming a student member of the Muslim League. After returning to Pakistan from the United States, Aziz joined the leading bureaucratic department the Planning Commission as its joint-secretary in 1967, but left in 1970 after accepting a research position in UN Food and Agriculture Organization, and later joined the International Fund for Agricultural Development in 1978. In 1984, Aziz returned to Pakistan after being request by Ghulam Ishaq Khan, joining the military government of President General Zia-ul-Haq as state minister of Ministry of Agriculture, later became senator in Senate. In 1993, Aziz was appointed as the Treasure minister, advising Prime minister Nawaz Sharif on intensifying his policies on privatization, Denationalization, capitalism, and principles of Free-market economics. Aziz was removed from the ministry but later returned after wining the support during the 1997 parliamentary elections to continue his reforms and policies.

Somanahalli Mallaiah Krishna (Kannada: ಸೋಮನಹಳ್ಳಿ ಮಲ್ಲಯ್ಯ ಕೃಷ್ಣ) (born 1 May 1932), generally referred to as S. M. Krishna, is an Indian politician who has served in the government of India as Minister of External Affairs since 2009. A member of the Indian Parliament from Karnataka in the Rajya Sabha, Krishna was the Chief Minister of Karnataka from 1999 to 2004 and Governor of Maharashtra from 2004 to 2008.

S.M. Krishna is the son of S.C. Mallaiah, Krishna born in a village Somanahalli in Maddur Taluk of Mandya District. He completed his Bachelor's in Arts from Maharaja's College, Mysore and obtained a Law degree from University Law College, which was then known as Government Law College in Bangalore. Krishna studied in the United States, graduating from the Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas and The George Washington University Law School in Washington D.C, where he was a Fulbright Scholar. Soon after his return to India, he got elected to the Karnataka legislative assembly in 1962. [1].