P Kumaran, a 1992-batch Indian Foreign Service officer, has been appointed as India’s next High Commissioner to United Kingdom, ministry of external affairs confirmed on Thursday. He is expected to take up the assignment shortly.
1992-batch IFS officer P Kumaran likely to be envoy to UK (Sourced)
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Currently serving as Secretary (East) in the ministry of external affairs, Kumaran brings significant diplomatic experience, having previously served as India’s ambassador to Singapore and Qatar.
Kumaran holds a B.Tech in Electronics and Communication from IIT Madras and is a career diplomat with extensive experience across regions and roles. He is married to Ritu Kumaran and the couple has two sons, according to foreign ministry's official website.
He began his diplomatic career as third secretary at the Indian Embassy in Cairo (1994–1997), followed by postings in Tripoli as second secretary (1997–2000) and Brussels as first secretary (2000–2003). He later served as deputy secretary (Europe West) in the ministry of external affairs from 2003 to 2005.
Kumaran went on to serve as regional passport officer in Bengaluru (2005–2007), after which he was posted to Islamabad as counsellor (2007–2009), followed by a stint in Washington in the same role (2009–2011). He then served as deputy high commissioner in Colombo from 2011 to 2014.
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He returned to New Delhi as joint secretary in the Consular, Passport and Visa Division (2014–2016) before taking up his first ambassadorial assignment in Doha, where he served as ambassador to Qatar from 2016 to 2020. He was subsequently appointed high commissioner to Singapore (2020–2023).
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He returned to New Delhi as joint secretary in the Consular, Passport and Visa Division (2014–2016) before taking up his first ambassadorial assignment in Doha, where he served as ambassador to Qatar from 2016 to 2020. He was subsequently appointed high commissioner to Singapore (2020–2023).
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In July 2023, he took over as additional secretary (Economic Relations and Development Partnership Administration) in the MEA and was later elevated to Special Secretary in the same division. He assumed charge as Secretary (East) on April 1, 2025.
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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Home/India News/P Kumaran, 1992-batch IFS officer, appointed India’s next high commissioner to UK
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