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OO RUEHAST RUEHBI RUEHCI RUEHDBU RUEHIK RUEHLH RUEHPW RUEHYG
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O 281314Z NOV 07
FM AMEMBASSY NEW DELHI
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 9461
INFO RUCNAFG/AFGHANISTAN COLLECTIVE
RUEHXP/ALL NATO POST COLLECTIVE
RUCNCLS/ALL SOUTH AND CENTRAL ASIA COLLECTIVE
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RUCNDT/USMISSION USUN NEW YORK 5702
RHMFISS/HQ USSOCOM MACDILL AFB FL
RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHDC
RHEFDIA/DIA WASHDC
RUEIDN/DNI WASHINGTON DC
RUEHNO/USMISSION USNATO 0146

UNCLAS NEW DELHI 005118 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV PREL PINR IN AF
SUBJECT: NEW INDIAN AMBASSADOR TO AFGHANISTAN 
 
 
¶1.  (U) The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has 
announced that Jayant Prasad, presently serving as India's 
PermRep in Geneva, has been appointed as the next 
Ambassador of India to Afghanistan, succeeding Rakesh Sood. 
 
¶2.  (SBU) COMMENT: U.S. diplomats who worked with him say 
Prasad is an entrepreneur in the mold of former MEA Joint 
Secretary, Americas (2003-2006) S. Jaishankar.  Prasad was 
 
SIPDIS 
Joint Secretary, MEA Americas Division from 2000 to 2003 - 
a crucial period that witnessed the ignition of stronger 
bilateral/strategic relations between India and the United 
States.  His appointment to Afghanistan is a welcome boon 
and an opportunity to expand U.S.-Indian cooperation in 
Afghanistan. Prasad's biography follows below. END COMMENT. 
 
------------------------------- 
BEGIN JAYANT PRASAD'S BIOGRAPHY: 
------------------------------- 
 
¶3.  (SBU) Jayant Prasad (57) served as the Joint Secretary, 
Americas Division, MEA, New Delhi, from November 2000 to 
February 2004 prior to his current assignment in Geneva as 
Permanent Representative. Before that, he was Joint 
Secretary in the Communication Vigilance (CNV) Division, an 
 
SIPDIS 
office responsible for employee oversight for one year. 
Prasad served as Ambassador to Algiers from 1995 to 1998 
after serving as a Counselor in India's EEC Mission in 
Belgium (1992-1995).  He also served as Staff Officer for 
the Foreign Secretary; First Secretary at the Permanent 
Mission of India to the UN in Geneva; and as Deputy 
Secretary in the United Nations Division of the MEA from 
 
SIPDIS 
1988 to 1991. In his present capacity, he is also a Member 
of the UN Secretary General's Advisory Board on Disarmament 
Matters. 
 
¶4.  (SBU) Prasad was born in New Delhi.  His father, Bimal 
Prasad, was a senior professor at the Center for Diplomatic 
Studies in the capital's Jawaharlal Nehru University and 
served as India's Ambassador to Nepal from 1991 to 1994. 
Educated at the University of Delhi and Jawaharlal Nehru 
University, New Delhi, Ambassador Prasad, like his father, 
taught modern Indian history for two years at New Delhi's 
prestigious St. Stephen's College before joining the Indian 
Foreign Service in 1976. 
 
¶5.  (SBU) Prasad was a Fellow at the Weatherhead Center for 
International Affairs at Harvard (1998-99), where he worked 
on a research project to study new parameters of India's 
foreign policy and to delineate India's strategic and 
technological environment through the year 2010. Sub-themes 
of this intellectual exercise included non-military threats 
to India's security and the implications of nuclear weapons 
tests for India's disarmament policy.  Prasad also served 
as a rapporteur of the UN Commission on Human Rights in 
Geneva from 1986 to 87. Prasad speaks English, Hindi, Urdu 
and Punjabi. 
 
¶6.  (SBU) Jayant Prasad is married to Bhupinder Prasad, an 
Indian Administrative Service officer of the 1976 batch, 
who has held a number of responsibilities in the New Delhi 
government such as Private Secretary to the Lieutenant 
Governor of New Delhi. She has been posted for the past 
three years in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and has 
direct knowledge of these islands, including their 
aboriginal tribes. 
 
MULFORD