Ruchi Ghanashyam has been named as the next High Commissioner of India to UK. The Ministry for External Affairs said she succeeds Y K Sinha, who had assumed the charge as the Indian High Commissioner in the UK in 2016. Ghanashyam will be the second woman to hold the key post since independence in 1947.
Senior diplomat, Ghanashyam joined the Indian Foreign Service in 1982 after obtaining a Master in Psychology from Bhopal University. She is married to A R Ghanashyam, who also joined the Indian Foreign Service the same year. She has two grown up sons.
After successful completion of her assignment as High Commissioner of India to South Africa with concurrent accreditation to the Kingdom of Lesotho (October 2014 – April 2017), she assumed the charge of the post of Secretary (West) in the Ministry of External Affairs on April 17, 2017. During her diplomatic career, she served as Joint Secretary and Additional Secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs, New Delhi heading the Europe West Division.
She earlier served as High Commissioner of India in Ghana (March 2008 - October 2011), during which she was also concurrently accredited to Burkina Faso, Togo and Sierra Leone. Earlier she served as Minister in the Permanent Mission of India to the United Nations in New York from May 2004 to March 2008.
She served as Director (Pakistan) at Headquarters in Delhi from August 2000 to March 2004 having earlier served as Counsellor (Political, Press & Info) in High Commission of India, Islamabad. She also served in the Embassy of India in Brussels, Belgium, Kathmandu, Nepal and Damascus, Syria where she learnt Arabic, and as Under Secretary in New Delhi looking after Audio-Visual Publicity for the Ministry of External Affairs.
Her appointment has come at a crucial time when the UK is in the process of coming out of the EU. The only woman High Commissioner so far was Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, who was in the post during 1954-1961. She was India’s third envoy after VK Krishna Menon and BG Kher, who steered India-UK relations soon after independence.
