Ruchira Kamboj: India’s first female UN Envoy 

You must have come across the term envoy at some point or the other while going through world affairs. It refers to the position of a diplomatic agent, similar to that of an ambassador. Recently, a senior diplomat named Ruchira Kamboj became India’s first ever woman UN Envoy. Following her appointment in the prestigious new role, Ms. Kamboj tweeted, stating that it was a privilege to be the first Indian woman to receive the honour. She also added a note of inspiration for all young women out there. “To the girls out there, we all can make it!” she wrote in her tweet. Here's more about Ms. Kamboj and the position she took charge of. 

Ruchira Kamboj: A snapshot of her career graph 
Ruchira Kamboj is a diplomat, hailing from the 1987 batch of Indian Foreign Service (IFS) officers. What’s interesting is that she was all-India women’s topper in that year for all Civil Services. For so long, Kamboj had been serving as India’s envoy to Bhutan. In fact, here too, she was India’s first female ambassador to a neighbouring nation. Earlier, between 2002 and 2005, she served as a counsellor at India’s Permanent Mission to the UN in New York. Kamboj had begun her diplomatic career in Paris where she was posted in the Indian Embassy as the Third Secretary from 1989 to 1991. Thereafter, she returned to India and served as the under-secretary in the Europe West Division (from 1991 to 1996), an arm of the Ministry of External Affairs. Following this, Kamboj again went overseas and took charge as the First Secretary (Economic and Commercial) in Mauritius. This was between 1996 and 1999. At the same time, she was also appointed as the Head of Chancery at the Indian High Commission in Port Louis. From 2006 to 2009, she worked as India’s Consul General in South Africa’s Cape Town. Later, she also acted as India’s High Commissioner to South Africa while simultaneously overseeing the Kingdom of Lesotho from 2017 to 2019.  Finally, she had assumed the role of an envoy to Bhutan from 2019 until recently.  

What it means to be a UN Envoy 
Simply put, UN Envoy, is the one who takes charge as the country’s permanent representative to the United Nations (UN). This means that Ruchira Kamboj now represents India at the UN and will be serving at its headquarters in New York, USA. She succeeds TS Tirumati in this role.  

Interestingly, while Kamboj happens to be the first woman from India to become a UN Envoy, there are other women from elsewhere serving in the same position. A few notable names are Linda Thomas-Greenfield, US Ambassador to the UN; Barbara Woodward, UK Permanent Representative Ambassador; and Mona Juul, Norway’s Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the UN among others.