Dinesh K Patnaik set to be India’s new envoy to Canada

Senior diplomat Dinesh K Patnaik is expected to be replaced in Spain by Jayant Khobragade, currently India’s ambassador to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean),

Published on: Jun 19, 2025, 14:40:00 IST

By Rezaul H Laskar

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Senior diplomat Dinesh K Patnaik, currently India’s envoy to Spain, is expected to be the new high commissioner to Canada as the two sides reset their relationship, people familiar with the matter said.

Dinesh K Patnaik is currently India’s envoy to Spain. (X)

Patnaik is expected to be replaced in Spain by Jayant Khobragade, currently India’s ambassador to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), the people said on condition of anonymity. The process for securing an agrément, or the formal agreement whereby a state receives a foreign country’s envoy, for Patnaik is already underway, the people said.

During their first meeting on Tuesday on the margins of the G7 Summit in Canada, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Canadian counterpart, Mark Carney, agreed on several steps to reset bilateral ties, which had plunged to an all-time low because of a diplomatic row over the killing of a Khalistani separatist in 2023. Among these steps was the appointment of new high commissioners in each other’s capitals.

HT first reported in March that Patnaik, from the 1990 batch of the Indian Foreign Service, was the front-runner for the post of high commissioner in Ottawa. He is one of India’s senior-most diplomats and served as deputy high commissioner to the UK during 2016-2018, a position that required handling the Khalistan problem within the Indian diaspora, as is the case with Canada.

Patnaik has more than 30 years of experience in assignments within India and abroad. He has served in the missions in Geneva, Dhaka, Beijing, and Vienna, and in the divisions focusing on Africa, Europe (West), the UN, and external publicity in the external affairs ministry.

Patnaik was the deputy chief of mission at the Indian embassy in Austria during 2009-2012, the ambassador to Cambodia during 2012-2015, and the envoy to Morocco during 2015-2016.

Though Khobragade was officially named as India’s envoy to Poland in January, the posting did not go ahead because of various reasons, the people said.

Khobragade is from the 1995 batch of the Indian Foreign Service and has done a stint in the Indian embassy in Spain in the past. He has also served in the Indian missions in Russia, Pakistan, and Kazakhstan, and served as the ambassador to Kyrgyzstan.

Within the external affairs ministry, he has served in the disarmament and international security division and the West Africa Division. He has also served on deputation with the Department of Atomic Energy from 2017 to 2020. Khobragade was appointed the ambassador to Asean in Jakarta in 2021, months after Pakistan refused to accept his posting as the charge d’affaires in Islamabad.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Rezaul H Laskar
Rezaul Hasan Laskar is Foreign Editor with the Hindustan Times, which he joined in 2015. He began as a journalist in his hometown of Shillong in northeast India and has worked in newspapers and wire services over the years. He moved to New Delhi in 1997 and initially focused on defence, national security, Jammu and Kashmir and the northeast, while also working of foreign policy and international relations. He has been part of the media delegation accompanying PMs on foreign visits and has reported from destinations ranging from Tibet to Ukraine. Between 2007 and 2013, he was the Press Trust of India correspondent in Pakistan, one of only two Indian journalists allowed to report from the country. He extensively covered Pakistan’s domestic politics and the life of the common people, as well as the fallout of the 2008 Mumbai attacks on India-Pakistan relations and the subsequent trial in Pakistan of the suspects involved in the attack. As part of his reportage in Pakistan, he travelled the breadth of the country, from the Swat Valley to Balochistan. Reza’s first gig in journalism was writing a weekly music column, and music – especially classic rock – remains a keen interest. He is also a movie buff and a keen photographer.Read More

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