An official is someone who holds an office (function or mandate, regardless whether it carries an actual working space with it) in an organization or government and participates in the exercise of authority (either his own or that of his superior and/or employer, public or legally private).

A government official or functionary is an official who is involved in public administration or government, through either election, appointment, selection, or employment. A bureaucrat is a member of the bureaucracy. An elected official is a person who is an official by virtue of an election. Officials may also be appointed ex officio (by virtue of another office, often in a specified capacity, such as presiding, advisory, secretary). Some official positions may be inherited.

A person who currently holds an office is referred to as an incumbent.

The word official as a noun has been recorded since the Middle English period, first seen in 1314.^{[citation needed]} It comes from the Old French official (12th century), from the Latin officialis ("attendant to a magistrate, public official"), the noun use of the original adjective officialis ("of or belonging to duty, service, or office") from officium ("office"). The meaning "person in charge of some public work or duty" was first recorded in 1555. The adjective is first attested in English in 1533, via the Old French oficial.

Feroze Varun Gandhi (born 13 March 1980, Delhi, India) is an Indian politician, he is a member of Lok Sabha, the lower house of Parliament of India, representing the Pilibhit constituency. He is a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party National Executive and the youngest National Secretary in the history of the party.

Varun Gandhi was born in Delhi on 13 March 1980 to Sanjay Gandhi and Maneka Gandhi, he is the grandson of the former Prime Minister of India, Indira Gandhi and the great-grandson of India's first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. His father died in a plane crash when he was three months old. His grandmother was assassinated when Varun was four-years-old. Indira Gandhi is said to have been very fond of Varun and was greatly distressed when his mother left the household.

He attended Rishi Valley School and completed his A levels from the British School, New Delhi, where he was elected secretary of the student council. According to a press statement released by Sumantra Bose, Professor of International and Comparative Politics at London School of Economics, Varun completed his Bachelor of Science in Economics from the London School of Economics via the University of London External System in the year 2002. He also completed his Master of Science in Public Policy from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, in 2004 also through correspondence.

An AMBER Alert or a Child Abduction Emergency (SAME code: CAE) is a child abduction alert bulletin in several countries throughout the world, issued upon the suspected abduction of a child, since 1996. AMBER is officially a backronym for "America's Missing: Broadcasting Emergency Response" but was originally named for Amber Hagerman, a 9-year-old child who was abducted and murdered in Arlington, Texas in 1996. Also an AMBER alert corresponds to the color of highway warning signs that are activated in AMBER alerts, the signs display messages in a reddish orange or an amber color. Alternate alert names are used in Georgia, where it is called "Levi's Call" (named after Levi Frady); Hawaii, where it is called a "Maile Amber Alert" (named after Maile Gilbert); and Arkansas, where it is called a "Morgan Nick Amber Alert" (in memory of Morgan Chauntel Nick). Frady, Gilbert and Nick were all children who went missing in those U.S. states.

AMBER Alerts are distributed via commercial radio stations, internet radio, satellite radio, television stations, and cable TV by the Emergency Alert System and NOAA Weather Radio (where they are termed "Child Abduction Emergency" or "Amber Alerts"). The alerts are also issued via e-mail, electronic traffic-condition signs, the LED billboards which are located outside of newer Walgreens locations, along with the LED/LCD signs of billboard companies such as Clear Channel Outdoor, CBS Outdoor and Lamar, or through wireless device SMS text messages.