Government appoints Devyani Khobragade in low-key position to avoid media glare

NEW DELHI: After her rather tumultuous stint as deputy consul general in New York, Devyani Khobragade is likely to stay put in India for some time. The government has now placed her as a director in the Development Partnership Administration (DPA) wing of the ministry of external affairs.

Khobragade is expected to take charge soon. While her appointment as a DPA director, a relatively low-key but important division, is expected to keep her away from the media glare, the diplomat will have a significant role to play as she helps carry out work on India's many aid projects abroad.

As the director of DPA-II, Khobragade will handle grant assistance projects in Southeast Asia, Central Asia, West Asia and in Latin American countries. She will also handle humanitarian and disaster relief work.

The diplomat's father Uttam Khobragade had earlier said that he expected MEA to give her an important posting. Sources said DPA was a growth area in need of good officers and that her earlier experience with the finance division would come in handy in her new responsibility.

As her father had said after her arrival from New York, Khobragade's husband and two children are expected to soon join her in Delhi. Her husband Aakash is a US citizen but is said to have no qualms about living in India. According to sources, Khobragade was in favour of serving in Delhi for a while before taking up any posting abroad.

In the normal course though, Khobragade would have had to wait for a while for her posting. Sources said the government didn't want to keep her deployment pending for long for fear of giving any "wrong" signal. It didn't want to give the impression that it was penalizing her for her conduct in the US in any way as India has officially maintained that there was no misdemeanour on her part and that the charges brought against her - visa fraud and submitting false documents - were utterly false. Khobragade herself is said to have scoffed at attempts by US attorney Preet Bharara's office to let her off by getting her to accept reduced charges.

While Khobragade got full diplomatic immunity after she was granted G-1 visa by the US in recognition of her appointment as counselor with India's permanent mission to the UN, she was asked to leave the country after India refused to waive her immunity. India reciprocated by expelling a US diplomat for his alleged role in "evacuating" the family members of Kahobragade'