Meet Ruchira Kamboj: Lesser Known Facts About India's Permanent Representative To The United Nations

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Recently, during the ongoing 67th session of the Commission on Status of Women at the UN Headquarters which was organised as a joint partnership with the Permanent Mission of India and the UN Women India, Ruchira Kamboj, India's Permanent Representative to the United Nations mentioned that this is the best time to be a woman in India while attending the high-level discussion this week on 'Leveraging Public-Private Commitment for Women's Greater Access to Technology and Education".

'In India, there has been enormous, enormous growth in the past eight-nine years particularly and today, I think it is perhaps the best time to be a woman in India. I mean that very sincerely,' she said. Further, she pointed out and stressed the fact that people in this country also recognise the 'transformational capacity of technology to provide impetus to women's empowerment and sustainable development.'

Talking on these lines she mentioned a model of women-led growth and development and shared her thoughts on two major initiatives, the Digital India programme and the Jan Dhan-Aadhaar-Mobile (JAM) trinity. She also stressed upon how the initiatives helped women during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Here are some lesser-known interesting facts about Ruchira Kamboja, India's Permanent Representative To United Nations.

Childhood, Early Years And Education

• Ruchira Kamoj was born on 3 May 1964 and her hometown is Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh.
• While her mother was a writer professor (retired) of Sanskrit from the University of Delhi, her late father was an officer in the Indian Army.
• She can speak three languages, Hindi, English And French.
• While growing up as a daughter of an army officer, she attended different schools in different cities such as Baroda, Delhi and Jammu.
• Discipline, punctuality and dressing smartly are something Kamoj grew up with.
• Once she completed her formal education, she opted for Civil Service Examination in 1987 and became the All India women's topper of the batch and also the topper of the 1987 IFS (Indian Foreign Services) batch.
• She is married to a businessman Diwakar Kamboj and has one daughter.

Career And Achievements

• In 1987, Ruchira Kamboj joined the Indian Foreign Services and she was All India Women's topper of the 1987 Civil Services batch and the topper of the 1987 Foreign Service batch.
• Her diplomatic journey began in Paris, France where in 1989-1991, she was posted as the third secretary in the Indian Embassy to France.
• She learnt French at the Institut Catholique, Paris and at the Alliance Française Paris during these years and once she completed it, Kamboj served as Second Secretary in the Indian Embassy to France dealing with Political issues.
• She worked as an undersecretary in the Europe West Division of India's Ministry of External Affairs from 1991-96 dealing with France UK, the BENELUX nations, Italy, Spain and Portugal.
• She has also handled India's relationship with the Commonwealth of Nations, representing the nations at the 14th Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in October 1995 in Auckland, New Zealand.
• From 1996-1999, she served in Mauritius as First Secretary (Economic and Commercial) and Head of Chancery at the Indian High Commission in Port Louis.
• Soon she returned to India and took the position of Deputy Secretary and later became the Director in charge of Foreign Service Personnel and Cadre in the Ministry of External Affairs from June 1999 to March 2002.
• She also served as Counsellor at India's Permanent Mission to the UN in New York from 2002-2005.
• From 2006-2009, she worked as India's Consul General in Cape Town, South Africa. Later, she was appointed as the Deputy Head of the Office of the Secretary-General at the Commonwealth Secretariat London.
• She served as India's Chief of Protocol from 2011 to 2014 and became the first female to be appointed to this position.
• Apart from that, she has organised several International Summits in India including BRICS Summit in Delhi in 2012, ASEAN- India Commemorative Summit in New Delhi and the 11th Asia Europe Foreign Minister's Meeting in Gurgaon, Haryana.
• In 2014 she led the Indian delegation that inscribed the historical landmark of Gujarat 'Rani ki Vav' on the World Heritage List. Also, Jaipur and Varanasi were added to the UNESCO Creative Cities Network (UCCN) in 2015 and in 2017, the inscription of Ahmedabad made it to India's first World Heritage City.
• From 2014 to 2017, she was Ambassador to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and became the first woman to assume this position.
• In 2016, at the UNESCO World Heritage Committee in Istanbul, she headed a team of the Indian delegation to record three Indian sites- Nalanda University ruins in Bihar, Capitol Complex in Chandigarh and Khangchendzonga Park in Sikkim in the World Heritage List.
• The same year, in December, she won global recognition for Yoga when it got marked on UNESCO's representative list of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
• In 2014, she came to India to organise the swearing-in ceremony of PM Narendra Modi, which was held on 26 May.
• From 24 August 2017- 2019, she assumed the position of High Commissioner of India to South Africa with concurrent accreditation to Lesotho.
• From the beginning of 2019 to July 2022, Kamboj served as Indian Ambassador to Bhutan.
• On 21 June Kamboj was appointed as the Ambassador/Permanent Representative of India to the UN in New York and became the first woman representative of that position.