India beats Germany, UK and Turkey to bag IAEA external auditor job
In the first round of voting for the post, Germany got 36 votes, India 30, the UK eight, Russia 11, Turkey 9, Egypt 20, Republic of Korea 2 and the Philippines 7 votes. The second round boiled down to the race between India and Germany.
India has been elected as the external auditor to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), a prestigious institution that promotes peaceful use of nuclear energy, for a period of six years from 2022 to 2027 after beating Germany and the United Kingdom among other counties. India's comptroller and auditor general GC Murmu was selected as the external auditor of IAEA and the ministry of external affairs (MEA) said his candidature received majority support of the IAEA general conference. The MEA has said that the election is a "recognition" of India's standing in the international community and global acknowledgement of the CAG's credentials, professionalism and experience. "The CAG's bid received majority support of the IAEA General Conference for the position for which several competing bids were submitted from different countries," it said in a statement.
The flag of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) waves at the entrance of the Vienna International Center in Vienna. (AP File Photo)
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In the first round of voting for the post, Germany got 36 votes, India 30, the UK eight, Russia 11, Turkey 9, Egypt 20, Republic of Korea 2 and the Philippines 7 votes. The second round boiled down to the race between India and Germany with India managing to beat the European country. Russia and the United Kingdom along with China, France, and the United States are the five permanent members of the UNSC with India among the 10 non-permanent members elected for two-year terms by the General Assembly.
The total number of ballots cast was 125 as there were 2 abstentions, 123 were present and voting with the required majority being 62. India was the IAEA external auditor from 2012 to 2015.
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The total number of ballots cast was 125 as there were 2 abstentions, 123 were present and voting with the required majority being 62. India was the IAEA external auditor from 2012 to 2015.
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Murmu took charge as the comptroller and auditor general of India on August 8 last year. Before that, he served as the first Lieutenant Governor of Jammu and Kashmir. Murmu also served in various capacities in the government—as secretary of the department of expenditure, special and additional secretary in the department of financial services and department of revenue.
The 65th Annual Regular Session of the IAEA General Conference was held from September 20 to 24 in Vienna. Throughout the week, the organisation held 80-plus events on nuclear topics. IAEA is the world's centre for cooperation in the nuclear field, promoting the safe, secure and peaceful use of nuclear technology.
Shishir Gupta is Executive Editor at Hindustan Times and one of India's top journalists covering national security, strategic affairs, foreign policy and geopolitics. Over the past three decades, he has extensively reported on India's military, diplomatic and security landscape, covering every major conflict and national security challenge, from the 1999 Kargil War and the 2020 East Ladakh standoff to Operation Sindoor in 2025. He has also covered major terror attacks, including the IC-814 hijacking, the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and the 2025 Pahalgam terror strike, along with numerous Pakistan-backed terrorist incidents in the Kashmir Valley and across India. He has reported on national and state elections for more than three decades. A recognised authority on strategic affairs, Gupta has covered India's nuclear programme since the Pokhran-II (Shakti series) tests in May 1998 and has written extensively on global nuclear issues, Indian diplomacy and the country's expanding global outreach. He has also reported widely on international conflicts and terrorism, with a special focus on the Indian subcontinent. Gupta has interviewed Prime Minister Narendra Modi more than four times, including Modi's first interview with the print media after becoming Prime Minister in May 2014. His other interviews include three with the Dalai Lama, as well as conversations with Benjamin Netanyahu, Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath, S. Jaishankar, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal. He is the author of Indian Mujahideen: The Enemy Within (Hachette, 2011) and Himalayan Face-off: Chinese Assertion and Indian Riposte (Hachette, 2014). He was awarded the Chevening-Wolfson Joint Scholarship at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, UK, in 1998 and participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) of the US State Department in 2006. He received the Ben Gurion Prize from Israel in 2011 and the K. Subrahmanyam Prize for Strategic Studies in 2015 from the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA). Since 2024, he has hosted Point Blank, Hindustan Times' weekly YouTube show on global geopolitics.
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