Finance
Ruchira Kamboj, the first female Permanent Representative of India to the UN, retired after 35 years of service, during which time she held positions as India’s envoys to South Africa, Bhutan, and UNESCO.
IFS officer Kamboj from the 1987 class wrote on X Saturday, saying, “Thank you, Bharat, for the extraordinary years and unforgettable experiences.” Over the previous two years, Kamboj negotiated the UN negotiations in New York while the battles between Israel and Hamas and Russia and Ukraine raged on. Kamboj was the 1987 Foreign Service batch topper and the All India women’s topper in the Civil Services batch.
On August 2, 2022, she was appointed India’s Permanent Representative and Ambassador to New York. Speaking Hindi, English, and French with ease, Kamboj started her diplomatic career in Paris from 1989 to 1991 as the Third Secretary of the Indian Embassy to France. According to the Indian Mission’s website, Kamboj served as Counsellor at India’s Permanent Mission to the UN in New York from 2002 to 2005. During her tenure, she engaged with a variety of political topics, such as the Middle East crisis, UN Security Council Reform, and UN Peacekeeping.
She also worked for a while at the Commonwealth Secretariat in London as the Deputy Head of the Office of the Secretary-General. She served as India’s Chief of Protocol from 2011 to 2014, making history as the first and only woman to hold this role in the government. With numerous firsts under her belt during her three years at UNESCO in Paris, the Ministry of External Affairs called her to Delhi in May 2014 for a special assignment to oversee PM Narendra Modi’s swearing-in event.
In February 2019, she served as the Indian ambassador to Bhutan, taking on a number of significant projects while there. In addition, from July 2017 until early 2019, she served as the Indian High Commissioner to South Africa and concurrently held accreditation to the Kingdom of Lesotho.
