By Prasun Sonwalkar, IANS
London : Britain's new Prime Minister Gordon Brown has appointed Shriti Vadera, an Indian-origin economist, as junior international development minister, which will involve dealing with issues related to India.
Vadera's appointment as the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State in the Department of International Development is all the more significant since she is outside the political spectrum.
She is the first Asian to be made a minister since Keith Vaz, who was minister for Europe from 1999-2001.
Vadera, who was a central figure in the Treasury presided over by Brown, was poised for a key role in 10, Downing Street, due to her proximity with Brown. She has advised him on various international issues, including Africa.
On her appointment, Vadera said: "I am proud of DFID (Department for International Development)'s track record and international leadership in the battle against poverty around the world. I am looking forward to working with Douglas Alexander (Secretary) to carry on the government's mission to help lift millions of people out of poverty."
Born in Uganda, her family moved in the 1970s first to India and then to England, where she studied politics, philosophy and economics at Somerville College, Oxford. She has held key financial and economic positions in London's financial district.
Vadera spent 14 years at investment bank UBS Warburg, where her duties included advising the governments of developing countries on a range of issues such as debt restructuring.
She was a Trustee of Oxfam between 2000 and 2005. For the last eight years, she has been an adviser to Gordon Brown when Chancellor, and a member of his Council of Economic Advisers.
She developed Brown's initiative on Education for All, launched last year with Nelson Mandela. She was also behind International Finance Facility for Immunisation, the innovative scheme developed with the Gates Foundation to raise $4 billion through bond sales to immunise 500 million children against preventable diseases.
Vadera is seen as a key figure behind-the-scenes who has the full confidence of Brown. She has been the main point of contact between the Treasury and the City, London's financial district.
The 40-something Vadera has been described in the corridors of Whitehall as "Gordon's representative on earth" and is known as a forceful official who often takes a higher profile in meetings than ministers due to her expertise and political common sense.
Vadera has overseen many of the more technical aspects of Treasury policy. She managed the sale of government defense-research company Qinetiq and the partial sale of the London Underground.
Vadera is on the board of trustees of Oxfam. Former minister Stephen Byers once said of her: "Shriti's Shriti. She can be forceful and sometimes she can be a real sweetie. She's a significant player in Whitehall."
Martin Vander Weyer, a former speech writer to Vadera, wrote in The Spectator: "The serious-minded but likeable thirty-something I knew has transmuted into the assassin of Railtrack, the ass-kicker of Transport for London, the axe-wielder from the Treasury whom departmental ministers fear as acutely as they fear Gordon himself, with whose total authority she speaks.
"The frisson at the mention of her name – and the urge to be nasty about her, neither 'portly' nor 'middle-aged' being strictly accurate at that time are typical of Vadera's treatment by the media, a situation which Westminster reporters say has arisen because, unlike pretty well everyone else in that vicinity, she flatly refuses to talk to them.
"The Treasury offers no personal details about her, and she is so rarely photographed that some Westminster hacks still can't pick her out at parties.
"It was her willingness to drive private-sector solutions to achieve socialist objectives – plus her tenacity and technical competence – that recommended Vadera to Brown. She became his chief negotiator with the City and the business community, some of whom resented her manner".
Vadera is part of a brains trust that Brown has assiduously built over the past decade. Many members of this fiercely loyal team were picked before they turned 30. Besides Vadera, other members of the team include Ed Balls, Ed Miliband and Damian MacBride.