Ajay Bisaria to be India's new High Commissioner to Pakistan

Ajay Bisaria will be India’s new High Commissioner to Pakistan, the Ministry of External Affairs announced on Wednesday. He is currently the Indian ambassador to Poland and Lithuania.

He takes over from Gautam Bambawale, who was last month appointed India' ambassador to China. "He is expected to take up his assignment shortly," the External Affairs Ministry said in a statement.

He has a Bachelor's Degree in Economics from Delhi's St Stephen's College (1980-83), a Master's in Business Administration from IIM-Kolkata (1983-85), and a Master's in Public Policy from Princeton University, USA (2008-09).

He also worked as a Soviet internal affairs specialist in the months leading up to the break-up of the USSR.

When India was engaged in building relationships with the post-Soviet countries, he was served as under-secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs on the East Europe desk.

He was shifted to the Ministry of Commerce at a time when India was engaged in building a relationship with Soviet. He was posted as First Secretary in the Indian Embassy in Berlin. He was entrusted with the project for the construction of the now-iconic building of the Indian embassy in Berlin.

Bisaria was appointed Private Secretary to the Prime Minister in 1999 and served in this capacity until 2004. During most of this period, he was an aide to Vajpayee and focussed on economic, defence and foreign policy issues.

He was then posted to the World Bank in Washington DC as adviser to the executive director for South Asia (2004-2008), where he worked on development projects and aid issues.

Bisaria returned to India in 2009 to serve as Joint Secretary (Eurasia) in the Ministry of External Affairs (2009-2014). He helped articulate an ambitious policy vision for India in Central Asia and coordinated India's approach to six annual Indo-Russian summits.