Dr Devyani Uttam Khobragade Appointed As The Ambassador Of India To Cambodia: MEA

Dr Devyani Uttam Khobragade, the present Joint Secretary at Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), will be the next Ambassador of India to the Kingdom of Cambodia, the MEA announced today. Khobragade is an Indian Foreign Service Officer of the 1999 batch and the daughter of retired Indian Administrative Officer and Politician Uttam Khobragade. She is expected to join the position soon.

Born in Tarapur, Maharashtra, Devyani Khobragade is a doctor by training. In 2012, she was posted at the Consulate General of India in New York and served as the Deputy Consul-General. In that position, she handled women’s affairs and political and economic issues.

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The VISA Fraud Case

Devyani Khobragade was in news back in 2013 when US authorities charged her in a visa fraud case. She was accused of providing false declarations in her maid's visa application and of paying her less than the minimum wage, as per NDTV. Consequently, she was arrested on December 12, 2013, in the US.

It was reported that Khobragade was ill-treated while she was in the custody. She had alleged that she was handcuffed, stripped and kept with common criminals and drug addicts. This triggered a massive protest in India. In January 2014, she returned from the US and joined MEA. The ministry granted her the diplomatic immunity which absolved her of all the lawsuits, as per its press release.

Khobragade Put On "Compulsary Wait"

In the same year, she was appointed in Delhi as the director of the Development Partnership Administration (DPA), a part of MEA. But in December 2014 she was put on a “compulsory wait” by the MEA for an inquiry into the allegations that Khobragade possessed dual passports of her children, one of US and the other of India, without informing the ministry, as per DNA's report. Although Khobragade remained firm that she had not done anything wrong.

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In July 2015 she was appointed as the Director in States Division at the foreign ministry with no promotion. The MEA had delayed her promotion to Joint Secretary due to the pending inquires against her. Subsequently, Devyani Khobragade moved the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT). Seven months after the CAT ruled in her favour, she was promoted to Grade-III of the Indian Foreign Service that is the Joint Secretary.

Khobragade is married to American Citizen Dr Akash Singh Rathore. He is a Research Professor at the University of Luiss in Rome. She has two daughters.

Devyani Khobragade is also an author. She wrote the book The White Sari which talks about a love story amidst the caste barriers and a tragedy. She also wrote a children’s book titled The Adventures of Young Ambedkar.

Picture Credit: Financial Express