Arundhati Ghose (25 November 1939 – 25 July 2016) was an Indian diplomat. She was Permanent Representative of India to the UN Offices in Geneva and was head of the Indian delegation that participated in the
Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) negotiations at the Conference on Disarmament in
Geneva in 1996.
She also served as Ambassador to the Republic of Korea and the Arab Republic of Egypt.
Early life
Ghose grew up in
Mumbai and studied at
Cathedral and John Connon School. She graduated from
Lady Brabourne College
Lady Brabourne College (LBC) is an institution for women's education in Kolkata, India. The college admits undergraduates and post-graduates, and awards degrees from the University of Calcutta. It is a state government administered college and is ...
in
Kolkata and went on to study at
Visva-Bharati University, in
Shantiniketan, before joining the
Indian Foreign Service in 1963.
Ghose came from a prominent
Bengali family. She is a sister of
Ruma Pal, a former
Supreme court
A supreme court is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts in most legal jurisdictions. Other descriptions for such courts include court of last resort, apex court, and high (or final) court of appeal. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...
judge, and of Bhaskar Ghose, former chairman of
Prasar Bharati.
She is the aunt of journalist
Sagarika Ghose
Sagarika Ghose (born 8 November 1964) is an Indian journalist, columnist and author. She has been a journalist since 1991 and has worked at ''The Times of India'', ''Outlook'' and ''The Indian Express''. She was a prime time anchor for BBC Wor ...
and
Sanjay Ghose
Sanjoy Ghose ( bn, সঞ্জয় ঘোষ) (7 December 1959 – 4 July 1997) was an Indian rural development activist known for his pioneering contributions to community health and development media. He is believed to have been killed b ...
, a social worker who was abducted and killed by
ULFA
The United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) (Assamese: সংযুক্ত মুক্তি বাহিনী, অসম) is an armed separatist organisation operating in the Northeast Indian state of Assam. It seeks to establish an indep ...
in Assam in 1997.
Career
In the course of her career, Ghose served in Austria, the Netherlands, Bangladesh and the Permanent Mission of India in New York. She was also the key liaison to the Bangladesh Government in exile in Calcutta during the 1971 War.
In 1996, Ghose was deputed to head India's delegation to the
CTBT conference in Geneva. India was a key participant at this conference, being one of only three countries that possessed nuclear technology and yet remained unrecognized as a nuclear power and outside the ambit of the
Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT). In keeping with its long standing and oft-enunciated policy, India declined to endorse any regime that permitted some countries to retain nuclear weaponry while limiting the ability of other countries to develop similar capabilities of their own. She resisted pressure from the Western countries on India to sign the CTBT, attaining celebrity status in India in the process.
She retired in November 1997.
Post-retirement
She was actively engaged in a number of activities till her death from cancer in 2016.
She was a Member of the
Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) from 1998 to 2004. She was a member of the UN Secretary General’s Advisory Board on Disarmament Matters from 1998 to 2001. She was a Member from India to the Committee for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights from 2004 to 2005. She was a member of the Executive Council of the
Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses from 2004 to 2007. She was also a member of Task Force on non-proliferation and Disarmament set up by the
Ministry of External Affairs in 2007.
Awards and honours
*
Friends of Liberation War Honour
Awards and decorations of the Bangladesh Liberation War were decorations which were bestowed by the major warring parties during the years of the Bangladesh Liberation War. Bangladesh, India and Pakistan all issued awards and decorations during ...
by the Government of Bangladesh on 27 March 2012.
See also
*
Navtej Sarna
*
Taranjit Singh Sandhu
*
Harsh Vardhan Shringla
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ghose, Arundhati
1939 births
2016 deaths
Permanent Representatives of India to the United Nations
Lady Brabourne College alumni
University of Calcutta alumni
Visva-Bharati University alumni
Cathedral and John Connon School alumni
Indian women ambassadors