IIT, Wharton alum Ashwini Vaishnaw is new IT minister amid tussle with Twitter

A lot will be riding on Ashwin Vaishnaw as he takes over his new role as Railways and IT minister after the massive Cabinet expansion by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The former IAS officer, who is also an IIT and Wharton alum, has a tough job at hands at a time when the Centre is engaged in a bitter tussle with social media companies over the new IT rules that his predecessor Ravi Shankar Prasad drafted.

While WhatsApp has challenged the new rules in court, the sharpest tussle is with Twitter, which has failed to appoint a permanent compliance officer based in India.

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A government note said that as an IAS officer, Vaishnaw handled important responsibilities over 15 years and was particularly known for his contribution to the public-private partnership framework in Infrastructure.

He has a MBA from Wharton School, Pennsylvania University and MTech from IIT Kanpur, and has held leadership roles across major global companies such as General Electric and Siemens.

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