File photo of Devyani Khobragade
S Jaishankar, the new Indian Ambassador to the US, arrived in Washington on Monday to take charge amid a raging diplomatic row over the arrest of senior diplomat Devyani Khobragade on visa fraud charges.
He is to take charge at a time when officials from both countries have intensified efforts to find an amicable resolution of the issue of Ms Khobragade's arrest.
Mr Jaishankar was India's Ambassador to China till recently.
While he would formally present his credentials to US President Barack Obama at the White House in the new year, Mr Jaishankar is expected to present his credentials to the Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Nisha Desai Biswal at the State Department soon.
Known as one of the brightest Foreign Service officials of his generation who played a key role in the India-US civilian nuclear deal, Mr Jaishankar's first task would be to prevent the relationship from getting derailed any further in the wake of the visa fraud case against Ms Khobragade.
She was arrested on December 12 on charges of making false declarations in a visa application for her maid Sangeeta Richard. She was later released on a US $250,000 bond.
Subsequent revelations that she was strip-searched and held with criminals triggered a row between the two sides.
Mr Jaishankar, who is proficient in Russian, and knows Japanese and Hungarian, succeeds Nirupama Rao. Born in New Delhi in 1955, Mr Jaishankar is son of prominent Indian strategic affairs analyst, commentator, and civil servant K Subrahmanyam and brother of historian Sanjay Subrahmanyam.
Having joined the Indian Foreign Service in 1977, he was Third and Second Secretary (Political) at Embassy of India, Moscow from 1979 to 1981. From 1981 to 1985, he was Under Secretary (Americas) and Policy Planning in the Ministry of External Affairs.
From 1985 to 1988, he served as First Secretary handling Political Affairs in the Embassy in Washington. Thereafter, from 1988 to 1990, he was First Secretary and Political Advisor to the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) in Sri Lanka.
From 1990 to 1993 he served as Counsellor (Commercial) in Budapest. He returned to headquarters and served as Director (East Europe).
He was the Press Secretary of the President of India from 1994-1995 and served as the Deputy Chief of Mission in Tokyo from 1996 to 2000.
In the year 2000, he was appointed the Ambassador of India to Czech Republic and served in Prague till 2004 after which he came back to headquarters to head the Americas Division in the Ministry till 2007. He was the High Commissioner of India to Singapore from 2007 to 2009.
Mr Jaishankar was the Ambassador of India to China from 2009 to 2013. He holds a PhD and MPhil in International Relations and MA in Political Science. He is a member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, London.