Nancy Powell, US ambassador to India, resigns
1 april 14
New Delhi: In a surprise move, US ambassador to India Nancy Powell on Monday announced her resignation from the post, a statement posted on the US embassy website said.
Powell, a career diplomat who replaced Democrat Timothy J. Roemeras
the US ambassador to India in 2012, “submitted her resignation to
President Obama,” the US embassy statement said, adding that “as planned
for some time, (she) will retire to her home in Delaware before the end
of May.”
With this, Powell was ending her 37-year-old career as a
diplomat which included postings as US Ambassador to Uganda, Ghana,
Pakistan, Nepal and India, the statement said.
“Ambassador Powell expressed her appreciation for the
professionalism and dedication of the US mission to India team who have
worked to expand the parameters of the US-India bilateral relationship,”
the statement added, without giving any reason for her sudden
resignation.
A report in the Hindustan Times earlier this month
had said that Powell, who arrived in India on 19 April 2012, would be
recalled if a Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance
(NDA) government was elected to office after the April-May election. The
report had said that Powell was perceived to be close to the current
Congress party-led United Progressive Alliance government that is
expected to be replaced by the NDA government, if opinion polls are to
be believed.
The report also said Powell had belatedly established contact with the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi
on 13 February, much after many of the other ambassadors of Western
nations ended their boycott of the Gujarat chief minister, who is
accused of turning a blind eye to the 2002 Gujarat riots in which many
hundreds of people were killed.
AJAY SINGH THAKUR
PGDM 2nd sem
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