Senior diplomat Manpreet Vohra has been appointed as India’s Ambassador to strategically important Afghanistan, succeeding Amar Sinha. Vohra, a 1988-batch Indian Foreign Service officer, is currently serving as Joint Secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs. He is expected to take up his assignment shortly. Vohra had served in the Indian High Commission in Pakistan as the Deputy High Commissioner besides having worked in Disarmament and International Security Affairs Division of the External Affairs Ministry. He had also served as India’s Ambassador to Peru.
India and Afghanistan are strategic partners and relations between the two countries are on an upswing. India has invested USD two billion in aid and reconstruction and trained scores of Afghan officers.
Did You Know???
- Afghans celebrate their new year, Nawroz, on 21 March, the first day of spring.
- The Taliban seized Kabul in 1996 and imposed Islamic punishments, including amputation and stoning, and banned women from working.
- In 2001 the Taliban destroyed giant Buddha statues at Bamian in defiance of international efforts to save them.
- Three weeks after the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington, D.C., the U.S. and Britain bombed terrorist camps in Afghanistan; by November 2001 Kabul fell to anti-Taliban forces.
- Afghanistan is the world’s largest supplier of opium, and the drug industry continues to make up a substantial part of Afghanistan’s economy.
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