Author: Manjeev Singh Puri

Former Ambassador of India to the EU and Distinguished Visiting Fellow- AC In addition, he has served twice in Germany (Bonn and Berlin), Cape Town, Muscat, Bangkok and Caracas. He joined the Indian Foreign Service (IFS) in 1982 and retired on 31 December 2019 in the rank of (Permanent) Secretary to the Government of India after 38 years of service. During his long diplomatic career, Ambassador Puri developed special expertise on multilateralism and the United Nations (UN) plus on plurilateral fora having been involved in work relating to G8/G5 and G-20 Summits. His foreign policy expertise also covers Europe, Nepal, Africa, South-East Asia, the Gulf and the Americas. He served as Deputy Chief of Protocol for four years (1994-1998) looking after Heads of State/Government visits to India from overseas that gave him an extensive exposure to high level Governmental working in India and other countries. Ambassador Puri has nearly a decade of experience dealing intensively with global issues. From 2005 to 2009, he headed the UN Economic & Social Affairs Division in the Ministry of External Affairs of India and was a senior member of Indian delegations at climate change and environment conferences, meetings on development and economic issues and human rights discussions. He led the Indian delegation for the first meeting of the Global Forum on Migration and Development in Brussels in July 2007 and the presentation of various reports by India at the Human Rights Council. From 2009 to 2013, he was Ambassador/Deputy Permanent Representative of India to the UN in New York. During this time India served on the Security Council (2011-12) and major negotiations on Sustainable Development took place under the aegis of the UN. The Arab Spring, Libya and Syria were key issues on the Security Council agenda at that time along with peace-keeping reform, counterterrorism, and sea piracy. India was also active in pushing reform of the UN, in particular the Security Council. Major areas of Ambassador Puri’s experience and professional focus relate to the environment, particularly climate change and sustainable development. He was a lead negotiator for India at the UN on issues relating to the post 2015 development agenda, Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and at the UN Conference on Sustainable Development held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in June 2012. He was a lead member of India's delegation at various Climate Change negotiations, including the Conference of Parties of the UNFCCC in Copenhagen in December 2009 and before that at Montreal, Bali, Bonn and Poznan. Furthermore, he was involved with India's participation in the G8-G5 Summits from 2005 and was the point-person for the Major Economies Forum. He has a Masters’ degree in Management and did his BA (Honours) in Economics from St. Stephen's College, Delhi. He worked with Hindustan Unilever before joining the IFS. He is presently a Distinguished Fellow at TERI (The Energy and Resources Institute) focussing on international climate change issues, sustainable development and SDGs.