Vikram Doraiswami is an Indian Foreign Service officer. He has served as Ambassador of India to Uzbekistan (2014-2015), Ambassador of India to the Republic of Korea (2015-2018), and High Commissioner of India to Bangladesh (2020-2022). He was appointed as High Commissioner of India to the United Kingdom on 22 September 2022.
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Wiki/Biography
Vikram Kumar Doraiswami was born on Friday, 11 July 1969 (age 54 years; as of 2023) in Kerala, India. His zodiac sign is Cancer. He attended a residential school in South India. He earned a master’s degree in history from the University of Delhi.
Physical Appearance
Height (approx.): 5′ 11″
Hair Colour: Salt & Pepper
Eye Colour: Black
Vikram Doraiswami with Indian President Droupadi Murmu
Family
Vikram Doraiswami belongs to a Tamil family and has family roots in Kerala, India.
Parents & Siblings
His father, an army officer, served as a pilot in the Bangladesh Liberation War.
Vikram Doraiswami’s father
Wife & Children
In 1996, Vikram Doraiswami got married to Sangeeta Doraiswami, a trained psychologist who works as a primary school teacher in the city where her husband is stationed. Together, they have a son.
Vikram Doraiswami and Sangeeta Doraiswami
Career
Vikram Doraiswami is a 1992-batch officer of the Indian Foreign Service (IFS). Before that, he worked as a journalist for one year. Doraiswami pursued his training in New Delhi from 1992 to 1993. After that, he was appointed as Third Secretary at the High Commission of India in Hong Kong in May 1994. During his time in Hong Kong, he took an elective diploma course in Chinese at the New Asia Yale-in-Asia language school of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. After spending nearly four years in Hong Kong, he was posted to the Embassy of India in Beijing in September 1996. Returning to the Ministry of External Affairs in New Delhi in 2000, Doraiswami assumed the role of Deputy Chief of Protocol (Ceremonials). During the tenure of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, in May 2004, he was deputed to the Prime Minister’s Office, and he has also served as Private Secretary to Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh.
Indian Ambassador to Korea Vikram Doraiswami (centre) speaks with guests at his farewell party at the Indian Embassy in Seoul
In 2006, he was appointed as Political Counsellor at the Permanent Mission of India to the United Nations in New York and in October 2009, he took up the position of India’s Consul General in Johannesburg, South Africa. In July 2011, Doraiswami returned to the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) in New Delhi and headed the Division for the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC). He was also the Coordinator for the Fourth Summit meeting of BRICS held in New Delhi in March 2012. From October 2012 to October 2014, he served as Joint Secretary of the Americas Division of the MEA. He was appointed as India’s Ambassador to Uzbekistan in October 2014. He served as India’s Ambassador to the Republic of Korea from April 2015 to July 2018.
Vikram Doraiswami presenting credentials to President of South Korea Park Geun-hye
After completing his assignment as Ambassador to the Republic of Korea, he returned to Headquarters in July 2018 and assumed the position of Head of Division for Bangladesh and Myanmar. In April 2019, he was entrusted with the task of establishing a new Division at the MEA for the Indo-Pacific. He was promoted in December 2019 and designated as Additional Secretary responsible for International Organizations and Summits. Doraiswami served as the High Commissioner of India to Bangladesh from October 2020 to 18 September 2022.
High Commissioner of India to Bangladesh Vikram Doraiswami presenting his credentials to the President of Bangladesh Abdul Hamid at Bangabhaban in Dhaka (2020)
He assumed the position of High Commissioner of India to the United Kingdom on 23 September 2022. In a traditional ceremony, Doraiswami rode a classic horse-drawn carriage to present his credentials to King Charles III at Buckingham Palace. He presented Letters of Commission, a formal letter from President Droupadi Murmu to the monarch as Britain’s Head of State, to mark the formal start of his UK posting. He is the first Indian envoy to be received at the palace by the King since the death of Britain’s longest-serving monarch, Queen Elizabeth II.
Indian High Commissioner to the UK Vikram Doraiswami presenting the Letters of Commission to Britain’s King Charles during an audience at Buckingham Palace
Facts/Trivia
- Doraiswami’s interests include reading, sports, fitness, travel, history, and Jazz. He has a voracious appetite for reading. PG Wodehouse is his favourite writer.
- He speaks English, Hindi, Tamil, Chinese, French, and Korean.
- He is a non-vegetarian.
- He occasionally consumes alcoholic beverages.
Categories: Biography
Source: vcmp.edu.vn