Nirupama Menon Rao is an Indian Foreign Service (IFS) officer and wife of Sudhakar Rao, a senior civil servant (Indian Administrative Service), and Chief Secretary of Karnataka. She was born on 6 December, 1950. Nirupama Menon Rao is also the current Foreign Secretary of India and serving the External Affairs Ministry.

Nirupama Menon Rao is the second woman to hold the post of Indian Foreign Secretary in July 2009. She has served in her career in numerous capacities including, Minister of Press Affairs in Washington, Deputy Chief of Mission in Moscow, stints in the Ministry of External Affairs as Joint Secretary (East Asia), (External Publicity) making her the first woman spokesperson of the External Affairs Ministry, Chief of Personnel, Ambassador to Peru and China, and High Commissioner to SriLanka.

In Malappuram, Kerala, into the Meempat tharawad, Nirupama Rao was born and her father was in the Army. Her schooling was from different cities like Bangalore, Pune, Lucknow, Coonoor (Tamil Nadu). In 1970, she completed her BA (English) in Mount Carmel College, in Bangalore, which was affiliated with the University of Mysore. Soon after, Masters Degree in English Literature was achieved by her from Marathwada University in Maharashtra. In 1973, Rao topped the All India Civil Services Examination and then she joined the Indian Foreign Service. With the completion of her training in India, an Indian Embassy in Vienna (Austria) in the mid seventies was served by her.

From 1981-83, Rao was promoted as First Secretary in the Indian High Commission in Sri Lanka. She focused in India’s relations with China during her early years in the Ministry of External Affairs. In December 1988, she also was a member of the delegation of Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi when he made his historic visit to Beijing. In 1992-93 at Harvard University, she was a member at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs where she specialized on Asia-Pacific Security.

As Minister and Deputy Chief of Mission, Rao helped in the Indian Embassies in Washington and Moscow. In 1995-1998, Rao’s first Ambassadorship was to Peru with concurrent accreditation to Bolivia. In 2001, she became the first woman spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs. Rao also became India’s first woman Ambassador to China in 2006. Rao was succeeding Shivshankar Menon, on August 1, 2009 and became India’s Foreign Secretary.

Nirupama Rao is also a part time poet and a singer. A book of poetry has been written by her and the name of that poetry book is Rain Rising. Rao’s poems have been also translated into Chinese and Russian languages.

Photos of Nirupama Rao

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirupama_Rao