Ambassador Gautam Mukhopadhaya
Ambassador Gautam Mukhopadhaya was born in Patna, Bihar (India) on May 24, 2024 and completed his Bachelor’s in History (1976) and Master’s in Sociology (1978) from Delhi University. He joined the Indian Foreign Service in 1980 and has since served in various capacities in Indian Embassies in Mexico, France, Cuba, Afghanistan and Syria, the Permanent Mission of India in New York, and in the Ministries of External Affairs and Defence in India. He is an alumni of the National Defence College of India (2001), and has also worked in the UN Headquarters in New York from September 1999-August 2000 as a Consultant on Social Development and as a Visiting Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington DC, from October 2009-March 2010. He re-opened the Indian Embassy in Kabul in November 2001 after the ouster of the Taliban in Afghanistan and returned there as India’s Ambassador to Afghanistan from July 2010 to May 2013. He has been serving as India’s Ambassador to Myanmar since his presentation of credentials on June 21, 2013.
During his career, Ambassador Mukhopadhaya has served in various capacities in the Ministry of External Affairs of India in the media, political and cultural wings. In 1985-86, he served at the Indian Embassy in Paris on behalf of the Ministry of Culture of the Government of India to coordinate the year-long ‘Festival of India’, the ‘L’annee de L’inde’, in France. As India’s representative to the Third Committee of the UN in New York (1996-1999), he dealt with issues relating to social development, human rights and advancement of women. He was also invited to join the UN Secretariat as a Consultant on social development for the preparatory process of the Copenhagen Social Summit plus Five UN General Assembly Special Session (2000) for which he wrote a report on the ‘Social impact of Globalisation’ and the Report of the Preparatory Commission for the Copenhagen Social Summit plus 5.
Following his stint in the NDC in 2000 and the reopening of the Indian Embassy in Kabul in November 2001, Ambassador Mukhopadhaya served in the Ministry of Defence of the Government of India as Joint Secretary (Planning & International Cooperation, 2002-2005. He then served as Ambassador of India to Syria from December 2005 to January 2009. At the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in 2009-10, he worked on Afghanistan.
Ambassador Mukhopadhaya’s career in the Indian Foreign Service has been notable for the range of his professional experience. These include media, culture, human rights, social development, defence and security, and conventional political and diplomatic assignments. His hobbies include music, especially classical Indian and world music, jazz and rock, other performing arts, travel, tropical trees and literature.
