Year of snakes, ladders
As China celebrates the Lunar Year of the Snake, the first angpow (red packet gift) was the DeepSeek AI software that shook Wall Street to the tune of nearly $1 trillion in market capitalization.
Former Foreign Secretary Vinay Mohan Kwatra was on Friday named as India’s next Ambassador to the United States.
He is expected to take up the assignment shortly, the Ministry of External Affairs said.
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The key ambassadorial position in Washington has been lying vacant since January 2024 after Mr Taranjit Sandhu’s retirement.
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Mr Kwatra retired as Foreign Secretary earlier this month with Mr Vikram Misri succeeding him in the post.
Mr Kwatra has previously served in China, the US, in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s office and as India’s envoy to France from August 2017 to February 2020. He has also served at the Indian consulates in Durban, China, and Russia.
He has also served as the head of economic, trade, and finance issues in the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC). He has also worked in India’s development programme in Afghanistan by the MEA.
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