India's High Commissioner to Sri Lanka Nirupama Rao was on Wednesday named as the next envoy to China.
Rao is only the second woman to be named for the post of foreign secretary after Chokila Iyer.
Following is the transcript of Indian Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao's media interaction
The government on Saturday officially announced the appointment of Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao as the next ambassador to the United States, an assignment she will take up shortly.
"Our bilateral engagement with the United States has witnessed remarkable transformation and has matured into a strategic partnership of global dimensions," Rao said in her speech at the American University on 'India's role in a Changing World'
'The algorithms you will use to unlock the mysteries of the universe are going to be very different from the ones my generation sought to master,' Nirupama Rao, India's Ambassador to the United States of America, tells students at Pondicherry University, May 19.
Indian Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao arrived in Kabul to assess the situation arising out of Thursday''s bomb blast outside the Indian embassy there, which claimed 17 lives and injured over 60.
The United States has assured India that the tragic shooting incident at a furdwara in Wisconsin will be fully investigated, Indian Ambassador to the US Nirupama Rao said.
Indian Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao will travel to Islamabad later this month to hold talks with her Pakistani counterpart during which India will raise the issue of nexus between Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence and the perpetrators of 26/11 attacks, as brought out by the trial of Pakistani-Canadian terrorist Tahawwur Rana in the United States.
India's new Ambassador to the United States Nirupama Rao was on Sunday accorded a rousing welcome by the Indian American community in Washington.
Both Indians and Americans have to consider themselves fortunate and thankful to have a diplomat of the caliber of Indian Ambassador Nirupama Rao posted in Washington and driving the burgeoning United States-India strategic partnership, a senior State Department official has said.
Indian Americans are committed and they are great when it comes to medicine, engineering, business or anything else that they touch, South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley told reporters in the state capital Columbia on Wednesday after a meeting with visiting Indian Ambassador Nirupama Rao.
"The issue of Jammu and Kashmir comes up in our relationship with Pakistan and we've said very clearly, very confidently and very transparently that we are prepared to discuss all outstanding issues with Pakistan," the foreign secretary said on Monday
Like in any expanding relationship, there will always be transactional issues to address between the two sides, says Rao.
The 58-year-old diplomat, who was ambassador to China before her new assignment, will have tenure of 17 months as the top foreign ministry official. Prior to her stint in China, she has served in various key positions, including India's High Commissioner to Sri Lanka and was the first woman spokesperson of the External Affairs Ministry.
The foreign secretaries of India and Pakistan are meeting in Islamabad on Thursday to hold talks on the Kashmir issue and confidence-building measures aimed at boosting the peace process between them that was resumed earlier this year. Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao is scheduled to arrive in Islamabad on Thursday morning for two-day talks with her Pakistani counterpart Salman Bashir. They will discuss peace and security.
William S Cohen, former defence secretary in the Clinton administration and a three-term Republican United States Senator and currently the chairman and CEO of the Cohen Group and a member of the board of directors of the US-India Business Council, has applauded the appointment of Nirupama Rao as the new ambassador to the US. It comes as a propitious time when there's a sense that the US-India relationship is adrift, he has said.
Nirupama Rao, the former Indian Ambassador to the US, has been named as the 'Meera and Vikram Gandhi Fellow' with the Brown-India initiative at the Watson Institute for International Studies.
On her last day as India's envoy to the United States, Ambassador Nirupama Rao was felicitated by the Barck Obama administration at the State Department on Monday, with US Secretary of State John F Kerry thanking her for her service toward furthering the strategic partnership between the two nations.
For the first time in the 43-year-old India Abroad newspaper's history, a Guest Editor was invited to edit the special magazine issue.
Nirupama Rao, India's new ambassador to the United States, has defended India's stand on Libya and Syria, which stands in stark contrast to that of the US and its allies in the NATO. In the interaction that followed her keynote address at the third Brookings-FICCI Strategic Dialogue on US-India Relations, Rao said, "Let me say that we deeply value the consultations that we had with the United States on issues related to the Arab Spring and the upheavals that we have seen".
Dr Manmohan Singh first embossed himself on the national consciousness when as India's finance minister he flagged off economic reforms which changed this nation forever.
The new foreign secretary brings formidable experience on Sino-Indian relations to South Block
Indian Ambassador to the US Nirupama Rao visited families of victims of the Wisconsin grudwara shootout and said that the incident should not define ties with the larger American community. Aziz Haniffa reports
National Security Adviser Shiv Shankar Menon and Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao, both former ambassadors to Beijing, prevailed over the dominant view of the Karmapa, Ugyen Trinley Dorjee, being a "pro-China asset in India", reports RS Chauhan
India's envoy to the United States Nirupama Rao attempts to counter the contention that there's a drift in the strategic partnership between the two nations. Aziz Haniffa reports
Strategic affairs experts express concern over US President Donald Trump's tariffs on India, his 'bullying tactics,' and increasing attempts to hyphenate New Delhi with Islamabad, signaling a potential shift in the bilateral relationship.
India would neither succumb to the Americans on issues of national security, such as its defence ties with Russia, nor cede ground on its domestic interests in the agriculture and dairy sectors.
Underlining the importance of stability in Afghanistan for regional security, Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao on Thursday said Washington 'fully recognises' India's role in the war-torn country and reiterated that New Delhi will not be 'scaling down' its operations there following the recent attacks targeting Indians. "The United States fully recognises that India has legitimate interests in Afghanistan. It appreciates the development work we do there," said Rao.
India and United States are now natural allies and New Delhi sees Washington as an important partner in its journey of inclusive social and economic development, a top Indian diplomat has said.
When Nirupama Rao became India's foreign secretary in August, only the second woman to get the top job, the grapevine around the Ministry of External Affairs had it that she would struggle to put her stamp on South Block, writes Jyoti Malhotra.
India has demanded stopping "forthwith" the "patronage of powerful forces and institutions" within Pakistan to the groups involved in anti-India acts, saying it faces "hostile forces" from across the border with that country.
India has rejected Pakistan's claim that it was in agreement with it that Home Secretary G K Pillai's remarks regarding Inter State Intelligence role in Mumbai attacks were uncalled for.
Pakistan High Commissioner Shahid Malik on Wednesday met Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao and discussed issues related to the India-Pakistan meeting scheduled to be held in New Delhi on February 25. Malik met Rao after his return from Islamabad, where he held consultations with the Pakistan government on the forthcoming meeting between the foreign secretaries of the two countries, sources said. After a 14-month hiatus, India on January 28 offered to hold talks with Pakistan.
India's Ambassador to the United States, Nirupama Rao, who immediately visited with the victims and families of the Sikh worshippers in the aftermath of the horrific massacre perpetrated by the white supremacist Wade Michael Page in the gurdwara in Oak Creek, Wisconsin on August 5, has exhorted the Indian American community to shed their differences of regionalism, ethnicity, religion, and unite to project a concerted front to protect itself from any future violence and discr
Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao on Monday said that New Delhi would continue to give more financial aid to Sri Lanka for rehabilitation and reconstruction of the war-ravaged Tamil-dominated northern areas.
The Indian and American people, belonging to two vibrant democracies, are the "lifeblood" of the Indo-US strategic partnership, said India's Ambassador to the United States Nirupama Rao while addressing over 300 members of the Indian American community and its leaders, senior US State Department officials, state and local bureaucrats and lawmakers.
There has been overwhelming elation from across United States from Indian American community leaders and activists over the decision by the government of India to appoint Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao as the new Indian Ambassador to the US, to succeed Meera Shankar whose term ends on July 31 after which she is expected to go into retirement from the Indian Foreign Service.
In a rare honour, and perhaps unprecedented in the annals of Indian diplomacy in the United States, Ambassador Nirupama Rao will travel to Gainesville, Florida, on Friday to deliver the graduation address to the University of Florida's Doctoral Degree Commencement Ceremony.
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