Ruchira Kamboj, India’s first woman Permanent Representative to UN, retires

She became Permanent Representative/Ambassador of India to New York, on August 2, 2022. Fluent in three languages, Hindi, English and French, Kamboj began her diplomatic career in Paris as the Third Secretary in the Indian Embassy to France from 1989-91. Kamboj was Counsellor at India’s Permanent Mission to the UN in New York from 2002-05, where she dealt with a wide range of political issues, including UN Peacekeeping, UN Security Council Reform, the Middle East crisis etc, according to the Indian Mission’s website.

She also had a stint as the Deputy Head of the Office of the Secretary-General at the Commonwealth Secretariat London. From 2011-14, she was India’s Chief of Protocol, the first and the only woman so far in Government to have held this position. During her three-year stint at UNESCO, Paris, with many firsts to her credit, in May 2014, the Ministry of External Affairs called her on a special assignment to Delhi to direct the swearing-in ceremony of PM Narendra Modi.

She was Indian Ambassador to Bhutan in February 2019 and undertook many important initiatives during her tenure. She was also High Commissioner of India to South Africa, with concurrent accreditation to the Kingdom of Lesotho from July 2017 through early 2019.