New Indian Envoy Doraiswami Reaches Bangladesh

Vikram Kumar Doraiswami, the newly appointed Indian High Commissioner, has arrived in Bangladesh to take up his diplomatic position.

According to diplomatic sources in Dhaka, Doraiswami, who entered Bangladesh from the Tripura border on Monday morning, is expected to reach Dhaka in the afternoon.

He succeeds Riva Ganguly Das, who already returned to New Delhi on October 1 for her next post as Secretary (East) in the Ministry of External Affairs. In March 2019, she was appointed as India's High Commissioner to Bangladesh.

Doraiswami is coming to Dhaka at a time when the bilateral ties between Bangladesh and India reached a new height and the two countries have lined-up a number of high-profile bilateral projects in the field of connectivity and infrastructure, particularly during the birth centenary of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

The Indian diplomat, who hails from Tamil Nadu in India, has a Master's degree in History from Delhi University and is able to converse in Chinese and Urdu and knows French as well.

The head of Dhaka, one of New Delhi's closest allies, is Doraiswami, a 1992 Indian Foreign Service officer who is currently an Additional Secretary at the Ministry of External Affairs. Doraiswami also worked as a journalist for some time in India prior to entering the Indian Foreign Service.

Prior to his current assignment, Doraiswami has earlier served as the Indian ambassador to the Republic of Korea and later was also posted in Uzbekistan.

Doraiswami, a soft-spoken and knowledgeable diplomat, is known for his detailed knowledge and homework of South Asia on the subjects he is dealing with. Doraiswami, as Joint Secretary of the MEA, managed Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Myanmar affairs at the MEA headquarters in New Delhi's South Block, diplomatic sources said.

His father was serving Indian Air Force during Bangladesh’s Liberation War in 1971 and he had participated in the war.

He is fluent in Bangla and his wife is Bengali.