Born in 1950, Ambassador Hemant Krishan Singh holds a Masters Degree from Delhi University where he attended and later taught at St. Stephen`s College before joining the Indian Foreign Service in 1974. Between 1976-1991, he served in various capacities at Indian Missions in Lisbon, Maputo, Washington D.C., Kathmandu and Belgrade. At the Ministry of External Affairs in New Delhi, he has held assignments of Under Secretary (Americas), Director (Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan) and Joint Secretary (West Europe). He was Deputy Permanent Representative of India to the UN in Geneva from 1995-99, covering the areas of human rights, humanitarian and refugee law, labour, health and intellectual property. Between 1999-2002, he was the Ambassador of India to Colombia with concurrent accreditation to Ecuador and Costa Rica, playing an active role in promoting economic and commercial relations with Latin America. As Ambassador to Indonesia with concurrent accreditation to Timor Leste from 2003-2006, he was closely associated with the intensification of relations with Indonesia as well as ASEAN. He served as India’s Ambassador to Japan from June 2006 to December 2010, contributing extensively to the forging of the India-Japan Strategic and Global Partnership through six Bilateral Summits. Ambassador Singh holds the ICRIER-Wadhwani Chair in India-US Policy Studies at ICRIER, New Delhi, since September 2011. He is a member of the US-India and the US-India-Japan Track II Strategic Dialogues.