Indra Mani Pandey Will be 1st Indian Secretary General of 7-Nation BIMSTEC

New Delhi: Senior diplomat Indra Mani Pandey will be the new Secretary-General of the seven-nation grouping BIMSTEC. He will be the first Indian to be appointed to this post of the regional bloc.

The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) on Friday announced Pandey’s appointment as the next Secretary-General of the BIMSTEC.

“This is the first time that an Indian will hold the position of the secretary general of BIMSTEC,” it said in a statement, adding that he will take up the assignment shortly.

Pandey will succeed Bhutan’s Tenzin Lekphell as the BIMSTEC Secretary-General.

Besides India, the BIMSTEC (Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation) has Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand, Nepal and Bhutan as its members.

Pandey, a 1990-batch Indian Foreign Service (IFS) official, is at present posted as India’s permanent representative to the United Nations and other international organisations in Geneva.