S Jaishankar, new Indian envoy to US, presents his credentials at state department

WASHINGTON: S Jaishankar, the new Indian ambassador to the US, presented his credentials at the state department on Thursday.

Pending his formal presentation of credentials before President Barack Obama, at White House in the New Year, Jaishankar presented a copy of his official credentials to the Office of Protocol authorising him to function as the ambassador.

“Ambassador S Jaishankar presented copies of his credentials to the Office of the Chief of Protocol on Thursday morning,” a state department spokesperson said.

“Ambassador Jaishankar can now conduct his duties as chief of mission in Washington,” the spokesperson said.

Jaishankar arrives in Washington at a time when the two countries are engaged in intensive discussions to resolve their differences over the arrest of senior Indian diplomat Devyani Khobragade on visa charges fraud.

Jaishankar, who is proficient in Russian, and knows Japanese and Hungarian, succeeds Nirupama Rao, who had presented her state department credentials to the deputy secretary of state, William Burns, on September 08, 2011.

Born in New Delhi in 1955, Jaishankar is son of prominent Indian strategic affairs analyst, commentator, and civil servant K Subrahmanyam and brother of historian Sanjay Subrahmanyam.

Having joined the Indian Foreign Service in 1977, he was third and second secretary (political) at the Indian embassy in Moscow from 1979 to 1981.

From 1981 to 1985, he was under secretary (Americas) and policy planning in the ministry of external affairs.

From 1985 to 1988, he served as first secretary handling political affairs in the embassy in Washington.

Thereafter, from 1988 to 1990, he was first secretary and political advisor to the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) in Sri Lanka.

From 1990 to 1993 he served as counsellor (commercial) in Budapest. He returned to headquarters and served as director (East Europe).

He was the press secretary to the President of India from 1994-1995 and served as the deputy chief of mission in Tokyo from 1996 to 2000.

In the year 2000, he was appointed the ambassador to Czech Republic and served in Prague till 2004 thereafter he came back to head the Americas division in the ministry till 2007.

He was the high commissioner to Singapore from 2007 to 2009 and served as the ambassador to China from 2009 to 2013.

He holds a PhD and an MPhil in international relations and an M A in political science. He is a member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, London.

S Jaishankar, new Indian envoy to US, presents his credentials at state department