Dinesh K Patnaik set to be India's new envoy to Canada
Patnaik is expected to be replaced in Spain by Jayant Khobragade, currently India's ambassador to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), the people said on condition of anonymity. The process for securing an agrément, or the formal agreement whereby a state receives a foreign country's envoy, for Patnaik is already underway, the people said.
During their first meeting on Tuesday on the margins of the G7 Summit in Canada, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Canadian counterpart, Mark Carney, agreed on several steps to reset bilateral ties, which had plunged to an all-time low because of a diplomatic row over the killing of a Khalistani separatist in 2023. Among these steps was the appointment of new high commissioners in each other's capitals.
HT first reported in March that Patnaik, from the 1990 batch of the Indian Foreign Service, was the front-runner for the post of high commissioner in Ottawa. He is one of India's senior-most diplomats and served as deputy high commissioner to the UK during 2016-2018, a position that required handling the Khalistan problem within the Indian diaspora, as is the case with Canada.
Patnaik has more than 30 years of experience in assignments within India and abroad. He has served in the missions in Geneva, Dhaka, Beijing, and Vienna, and in the divisions focusing on Africa, Europe (West), the UN, and external publicity in the external affairs ministry.
Patnaik was the deputy chief of mission at the Indian embassy in Austria during 2009-2012, the ambassador to Cambodia during 2012-2015, and the envoy to Morocco during 2015-2016.
Though Khobragade was officially named as India's envoy to Poland in January, the posting did not go ahead because of various reasons, the people said.
Khobragade is from the 1995 batch of the Indian Foreign Service and has done a stint in the Indian embassy in Spain in the past. He has also served in the Indian missions in Russia, Pakistan, and Kazakhstan, and served as the ambassador to Kyrgyzstan.
Within the external affairs ministry, he has served in the disarmament and international security division and the West Africa Division. He has also served on deputation with the Department of Atomic Energy from 2017 to 2020. Khobragade was appointed the ambassador to Asean in Jakarta in 2021, months after Pakistan refused to accept his posting as the charge d'affaires in Islamabad.
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Indian Express
19 minutes ago
- Indian Express
‘Purchased' honorary titles, international web of shell firms: How Ghaziabad conman operated fake embassy for 9 yrs
A pristine white bungalow, four flashy sedans with blue and white diplomatic number plates parked in the driveway, national flags from across the world and a man posing as an 'ambassador'. When Uttar Pradesh Police's Special Task Force (STF) raided the 'Embassy of Westarctica' in Ghaziabad's upscale Kavi Nagar neighbourhood earlier this week, they came across an elaborate con job. Far from an an ordinary swindler, Harsh Vardhan Jain, the accused, had been running a fake embassy of a country that doesn't exist, without raising any suspicion for the last nine years. Jain had planned every detail meticulously to build this façade, according to the police. He had allegedly printed fake press cards, doctored photos with top dignitaries and even 'purchased' honorary titles from self-proclaimed micronations. The preliminary investigation, police say, has revealed that Jain was running a multi-nation scam. How did Jain manage to execute such a fraud, undetected for years, right beneath the vigilant gaze of the local Ghaziabad Police is yet to be revealed. How Jain's fake embassy operation was finally exposed is also unknown. According to the UPSTF, Jain is a Ghaziabad-born MBA graduate who claims to have studied in London. His father, JD Jain, was a once reputed industrialist, with marble export businesses operating in Rajasthan. In the early 2000s, Jain reportedly came in contact with self-styled godman Chandraswami, who allegedly introduced him to arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi and Ehsan Ali Syed, another conman posing as a businessman who was convicted in a fraud case in Switzerland. With their help, Jain is said to have established more than a dozen companies in Dubai, London, and Mauritius — many of them shell firms used to collect 'brokerage' for jobs and promises of huge loans before duping them. After a few years in London and Dubai, Jain allegedly returned to India in 2011 and began projecting himself as a diplomat. Police say he leveraged honorary titles from unrecognised micronations — Seborga, Westarctica, and Lodonia — to set up a fake embassy in his Ghaziabad home. He had also been posing as the ambassador of a fictional nation called Poulvia. When STF officers entered the Kavi Nagar bungalow on July 22, they found what appeared to be a diplomatic mission: cars with blue number plates bearing phrases like 'Honorary Consul – Baron Westarctica', flags of different nations on the property, and signages that were creating the illusion of official legitimacy. 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In a detailed response to questions asked by The Indian Express, Ladonia's Press Officer, Julia Andersson, said Jain became a 'symbolic citizen' on November 12, 2016, and had 'purchased' an honorary barony title. The micronation alleged that in November 2017, Jain had forged a certificate falsely claiming to be Ladonia's Ambassador to India, backdating it to September 15, 2016, in an attempt to predate the symbolic appointment of another Indian individual and had been 'harrassing' its officials by spamming them with texts and mails requesting for Ladonian paraphernalia, a request that was denied by the micronation. According to STF and police officials, Jain's network spanned multiple countries. He alleegdly maintained 11 bank accounts in the UK, UAE, Mauritius, and India; set up shell firms like Island General Trading Co. 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Indian Express
21 minutes ago
- Indian Express
India unlikely to import US genetically modified agricultural items under trade deal: Sources
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News18
31 minutes ago
- News18
Arunachal guv attends Kargil Vijay Diwas event in Namsai
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