Geetika Srivastava will be the first-ever female chargé d’affaires (an ambassador’s deputy) appointed by the Indian High Commission in Islamabad, reports The News.

She was appointed soon after the designation of the United Kingdom’s first female high commissioner to Pakistan.

Following the friction in the bilateral relations between Pakistan and India in 2019, no full-time high commissioner has been posted in Islamabad or New Delhi, and instead, junior diplomats are posted as chargé d’affaires.

The last Indian High Commissioner in Islamabad, Ajay Bisaria, was removed in 2019 after Pakistan decided to downgrade diplomatic ties over India’s revocation of the special status of Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK).

Some of the qualified Indian high commissioners serving in Islamabad departed and were promoted as foreign secretaries in India.

Who is Geetika Srivastava?

Geetika Srivastava is from the 2005 batch of the Indian Foreign Service (IFS).

She speaks Chinese (Mandarin) fluently and has previously been appointed in China for an assignment. Originally from Uttar Pradesh, she has also served as Regional Passport Officer in Kolkata and Director in the IOR Division of the Ministry of External Affairs.

She is currently a Joint Secretary in charge of the Indo-Pacific Division in the Ministry of External Affairs, New Delhi. The Indo-Pacific Division of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) looks after India’s multilateral diplomacy with ASEAN, IORA, FIPIC, and other entities in the Indo-Pacific region.