New Delhi: Senior diplomat and Indian Foreign Service (IFS) officer of the 1989 batch Mr. Vikram Misri took over on Monday as India’s new Foreign Secretary after the incumbent Mr. Vinay Mohan Kwatra demitted office earlier on Sunday. Mr. Misri was earlier the Deputy National Security Advisor (from January 1, 2022, to June 30 this year) prior to his new appointment announced by the NDA Government late last month after approval by the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC) Chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
MEA officials said Mr. Misri was earlier appointed India’s Ambassador to Spain in 2014, Ambassador to Myanmar in 2016 and Ambassador to China where he served from January 2019 to December 2021. His tenure as Ambassador in Beijing was at a crucial time during the military standoff in the Ladakh sector at the LAC in 2020 between Indian and Chinese troops and he is understood to have played a major role in keeping communication channels open with China despite the dangerous military tensions at that time when the deadly Galwan valley clash between troops of both sides took place in mid-June, 2020. Relations between the two Asian giants still remain strained since Chinese troops have not yet pulled back from some of the friction points in the Ladakh sector and this is expected o be one of the major challenges facing the new Foreign Secretary. Also, there have been sharp irritants since last year in India’s relationship with the Joe Biden Administration in the United States and this is expected to be another major challenge.
During his long career, Mr.Misri has also been posted in other Capitals such as Brussels, Tunis, Islamabad and Washington D.C. He was also Deputy High Commissioner of India in Sri Lanka and Consul General of India in Munich. Officials said Mr. Misri has served in various capacities at the Ministry of External Affairs, in the Prime Minister’s Office in New Delhi and in various Indian Missions abroad in Europe, Africa, Asia and North America.
His assignments in New Delhi have included work on the Pakistan desk of the Ministry of External Affairs and stints on the staffs of two Foreign Ministers (Mr. I.K. Gujral and Mr. Pranab Mukherjee). Apart from serving as the Joint Secretary in the Prime Minister’s Office, he has also previously served as Private Secretary to three Prime Ministers of India (Mr. I.K. Gujral, Mr. Manmohan Singh and curremt PM Mr. Narendra Modi).
Mr. Misri was born in Srinagar and had his early education there (Burn Hall School and DAV School) as well as in Udhampur (Carmel Convent School) in Jammu and Kashmir. He finished his schooling from the Scindia School in Gwalior and went on to earn a Bachelor’s degree with Honours in History from the Hindu College, University of Delhi and an MBA from XLRI, Jamshedpur.
Before joining the IFS. he worked for three years in the private sector in the fields of advertising (Lintas India - Bombay and Contract Advertising - Delhi) and advertising film-making. Mr. Misri is also a Fellow of the Aspen Institute USA’s India Leadership Initiative (now the Kamalnayan Bajaj Fellowship). He speaks fluent Hindi, English and Kashmiri and has a working knowledge of French, officials said.
