Polyglot IFS Sujan Chinoy delivers speech in Japanese at Abe’s luncheon

WHEN Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe hosted a luncheon at his official residence in Tokyo only for the Japanese-speaking ambassadors, India’s envoy in Japan and 1981 batch Indian Foreign Service officer Sujan Chinoy found his place, and quite rightly. The officer, originally belonging to Kathiawar region of Gujarat, also delivered a speech in Japanese highlighting his impression of Japan and India-Japan bilateral ties. Chinoy is a polyglot, with command over languages such as French, Spanish, German, Japanese, Chinese, Arabic, in addition to…

How DEA secretary and 1980 batch IAS Shaktikanta Das answers a question in Tamil

AT THE inaugural session of economic editors conference in New Delhi, televised by some TV channels, finance minister Arun Jaitley got puzzled for a moment. “Kya” (what?) — he asked his officials sitting next to him, as one of the editors from Tamil Nadu began by asking a question in English before shifting to Tamil language. The question was on investment awareness among common people. The media person from Tamil Nadu got a reply from union secretary of the department of economic affairs (DEA) Shaktikanta Das who hails from Odisha but...