NEW DELHI: India’s ambassador to Nepal Vinay Mohan Kwatra was appointed as the new Foreign Secretary, succeeding Harsh Vardhan Shringla who will retire at the end of this month. Kwatra happens to be the second Indian ambassador to Nepal to get the coveted post after Shyam Saran in 2004.
The senior diplomat had served in the PMO from October 2015 to August 2017. Key diplomatic assignments in the neighbourhood are given to the IFS officers with inter-ministerial experience, sources said, adding that is how Kwatra, who was joint secretary in the PMO, was selected as Ambassador to Nepal.
In his over 32 years of career, the 1988-batch IFS officer had stints as a Third Secretary and then Second Secretary in the Permanent Mission of India in Geneva until 1993. Apart from learning French, he handled work relating to the UN specialised agencies and the Human Rights Commission.
Between 1993 and 2003, he served as the Desk Officer at UN Headquarters and subsequently to diplomatic missions in South Africa and Uzbekistan. He served as Counsellor and later as Deputy Chief of Mission in the Indian embassy in Beijing between 2003 and 2006.
From 2006 to 2010, Kwatra represented India at the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) Secretariat in Nepal as the head of trade, economy and finance bureau. From May 2010 till July 2013, he served as Minister (Commerce) in Washington. Between July 2013 and October 2015, he headed Policy Planning and Research Division of the Ministry of External Affairs and also served as head of Americas Division in the MEA. He was the Ambassador to France from August 2017 to February 2020, before taking charge as the Ambassador to Nepal in March 2020.