India will soon reposition its envoys in the United Nations, Pakistan, China and Rome as several officers are to retire soon, and some are due for postings out of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) Secretariat in New Delhi. Most of the positions will be taken up by late December or early January.
Navtej Sarna, serving currently as Secretary (West) in the MEA, will be the next Indian High Commissioner to london replacing former Foreign Secretary Ranjan Mathai. However, Sarna will take over only after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the United Kingdom in November. Anil Wadhwa, Secretary (East), will be the ambassador to Rome.
The other prominent changes relate to Pakistan and China. Gautam Bambawale, India’s ambassador to Bhutan, will take over as High Commissioner to Pakistan from TCA Raghavan, who is retiring on December 31.
Vijay Gokhale, India’s ambassador to Germany, will take over from Ashok Kantha in Beijing. Syed Akbaruddin, former spokesperson of MEA and at present Additional Secretary in-charge of Indo-Africa Summit to be held in October, will be going as the next Permanent Representative of India to the UN in New York. He will replace Asoke Mukerji, who is retiring. Pankaj Saran will replace PS Raghavan in Moscow.
The MEA headquarters will see Amar Sinha replacing Wadhwa as Secretray (East) and Amarendra Khatua taking over from Sarna as Secretary (West). Sinha, who earlier looked after Pakistan desk as Joint Secretary, is at present India’s ambassador to Afghanistan while Khatua is the envoy in Argentina.
Harsh V Shringla, who earlier handled Bangladesh, Sri lanka and Myanmar desk as JS and is at present Indian envoy to Bangkok, will move to Bangladesh as the High Commissioner. Indian Ambassador to Mexico Sujan Chinoy will be the next Ambassador of Japan to replace Deepa Wadhwa. However, the change will take place only after the visit of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to New Delhi in early December.
Meanwhile, senior diplomat George Raju has been appointed India’s next Ambassador to Iraq, succeeding Ajay Kumar. Raju at present is serving as India’s Consul General in Saint Denis, an overseas region of France in the Indian Ocean.