The Government today appointed Sushma Singh, a 1972 batch IAS officer from the Jharkhand cadre, as the new Secretary, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (I&B). She succeeds Asha Swarup who moved to Himachal Pradesh on June 19 to take up the position of chief Secretary after a 15-month tenure at the ministry. In the interim period of 15-days since Swarup vaccated the postion, Ashok Chawla, the current Secretary, Civil Aviation ministry had been given the additional charge of the I&B ministry. Singh will take charge from July 4, a senior official of the I&B ministry said. Singh has earlier been the Secretary, Ministry of Panchayati Raj and Secretary, Ministry of Development for North East region. For the media industry, the appointment of Singh as a full-time Secretary is a welcome step as the I&B ministry is currently dealing with a number of pending issues like the roll-out of Conditional Access System in rest of the three metros, policy initiatives on IPTV, HITS, and Mobile TV and the new FDI guidelines for the broadcasting sector among others.
