Meet the officers who “worked 200 hours non-stop” on the New Delhi Declaration at the G20 Summit in 2023

Amitabh Kant, the current sherpa for India at the G20, said that 300 bilateral talks and 200 hours of non-stop discussions by a team of diplomats helped the G-20 approve the New Delhi statement during its 18th Leader’s summit in New Delhi.

The diplomatic team, which included joint secretaries K Nagraj Naidu and Eenam Gambhir, had 300 bilateral talks and shared 15 drafts with their counterparts to forge an agreement that was reached on the first day of the G20 Leaders Summit. The agreement on the geopolitical paras listed in the decalaration was facilitated by these two officials.

The achievement of agreement on the geopolitical paras (Russia-Ukraine) was the most challenging aspect of the whole #G20. 300 bilateral sessions, 200 hours of nonstop talks, and 15 drafts were used to complete this. Two outstanding cops, @NagNaidu08 & @eenamg, significantly helped me in this, Kant said on X (formerly Twitter) and uploaded a photo of himself with them.

Eenam Gambhir: Who is he?

Indian Foreign Service officer Eenam, class of 2005, is presently the joint secretary of the G20 and the Ministry of External Affairs in New Delhi. She has two master’s degrees: an advanced international security master’s from the University of Geneva and a master of sciences in mathematics from Delhi University.

Gambhir has worked at Indian embassies in Latin American nations including Mexico and Argentina as well as the Office of the President of the 74th session of the United Nations General Assembly, where he served as a senior consultant on peace and security issues.

She addressed political peace and security matters till June 2019 while working for India’s permanent mission to the UN in New York. While working in New Delhi from 2011 to 2016, she also worked with matters pertaining to Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iran in a variety of positions.

Nagaraj Naidu Kakanur: who is he?

The team’s Chinese speaker is Kakanur, an Indian Foreign Service officer from the 1998 batch who is presently working as a joint secretary. He graduated from Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy with a master’s degree in law and diplomacy.

Kakanur was the deputy permanent representative of India to the United Nations and the chef de cabinet to the president of the 76th session of the General Assembly of the United Nations.

He has worked in China four times, including at the Indian embassy in Beijing and the Indian Consulate in Hong Kong. He speaks Chinese well. He worked as the Indian embassy’s first secretary and counsellor (economic and commercial affairs) in Beijing from 2009 until 2012. From 2013 until 2015, he served as the Indian Consul General in Guangzhou, China.

From 2015 to 2017, he also held the dual positions of joint secretary and director general of the Ministry of External Affairs’ economic diplomacy section.

Shashi Tharoor, a senior member of the Congress, praised Amitabh Kant, India’s G20 Sherpa, on Sunday and called it a “proud moment for India at G20.” In response to Kant’s comments in an interview on how the Russia-Ukraine accord was reached, Tharoor said on X, “Well done @amitabhk87!When you decided to join the IAS, it seemed that the IFS lost an excellent diplomat.

“‘Negotiated with Russia, China, and just last night got a final draft,’ says India’s G20 Sherpa on the consensus around the ‘Delhi Declaration’. At the G20, India had a moment to be proud. Late Saturday night, Tharoor, a former under-secretary general, said in his article.