New York: Ruchira Kamboj appointed as India’s Permanent Representative to the UN on Tuesday. She is the first woman to hold the position after presenting her credentials to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres. She said in a tweet before submitting her credentials to the UN General Secretary that it is my deepest honour to serve my country in this new position.
Kamboj will take her seat at the Security Council, where India is an elected member. She is scheduled to preside over the Security Council in December. she brings to the UN a wide range of experience with multilateral organizations, including stints as a Counsellor at India’s mission in New York, Permanent Representative to the UNESCO in Paris, and deputy head of the Office of the Commonwealth Secretary General in London.

She was an IFS officer of the 1987 batch and she was Ambassador to Bhutan before assuming her new role. Earlier, she had been the High Commissioner in South Africa and was also the Chief of protocol. She succeeds TS Tirumurti who has retired from the Foreign Service. Coming after 21 Indian representatives at the UN, she is the first woman to be the permanent representative, although Jawaharlal Nehru’s sister Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit had been designated the chief delegate to the General Assembly twice.