New Delhi: The Indian High Commission in Islamabad has appointed Geetika Srivastava as its first woman in-charge, Pakistani newspaper reported on Monday. For the first time, India has entrusted the responsibility of the in-charge in the hands of a woman officer in Pakistan.
New Delhi: The Indian High Commission in Islamabad has appointed Geetika Srivastava as its first woman in-charge, Pakistani newspaper reported on Monday. For the first time, India has entrusted the responsibility of the in-charge in the hands of a woman officer in Pakistan.
According to the report, just a few days back Britain has also posted a woman High Commissioner in Pakistan and now for the first time India has entrusted the responsibility of Pakistan affairs to a woman officer.
As the tenure of the current CDA, Dr. Suresh Kumar, is coming to an end and he is about to return to New Delhi, Geetika Srivastava has been appointed. According to the report, Geetika Srivastava is soon going to take charge in Pakistan.
In the year 2019, when the Indian government abolished Article 370 from Jammu and Kashmir, after that Pakistan reduced diplomatic relations with India and since then there is no full-time High Commissioner in Islamabad or New Delhi, but now at the junior level. Diplomats are posted as charge d’affaires.
The last Indian High Commissioner to serve in Islamabad was Ajay Bisaria and was asked to leave the country by then Prime Minister Imran Khan following India’s decision on Kashmir in 2019. Since then, diplomatic relations between the two countries are at their lowest level.
Several distinguished Indian High Commissioners who served in Islamabad have returned home to be promoted as Foreign Secretaries. Geetika Srivastava belongs to the 2005 batch of the Indian Foreign Service and has spent most of her career in China.
Geetika, originally from Uttar Pradesh, has also served as Regional Passport Officer in Kolkata and Director in the IOR Division of the Ministry of External Affairs.Geetika Srivastava is currently Joint Secretary in charge of the Indo-Pacific Division in the Ministry of External Affairs in New Delhi.
The Indo-Pacific Division of the Ministry of External Affairs looks after India’s multilateral diplomacy with ASEAN, IORA, FIPIC and other institutions in the Indo-Pacific region.
At the same time, diplomatic sources in Pakistan have confirmed that Pakistani official Saad Waraich, who is currently the Director General for Afghanistan, Turkey and Iran in the Pakistani Ministry of Foreign Affairs, has been designated as the Pakistan CDA in India, and he has recently I have applied for my Indian Visa.
