Ambassador

J. Bhagwati took over his assignment as Ambassador of India to Belgium, Luxembourg and to the European Union on 15 September 2008. Dr. Bhagwati is a member of the 1976 batch of the Indian Foreign Service. He has served for thirty three years in various capacities in the Ministry of External Affairs, Ministry of Finance in the Government of India and in the World Bank in Washington D.C.

Immediately prior to being appointed India’s Ambassador to Belgium, Luxembourg and the EU, Dr. Bhagwati served as Additional Secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India and earlier as Chief, Corporate Finance in the World Bank. He has also served as Joint Secretary (Capital Markets, External Commercial Borrowings and Pension Reforms) in the Department of Economic Affairs in the Government of India.

During his career Dr. Bhagwati has developed wide experience in financial and economic matters with specialisation in capital markets. Dr. Bhagwati has led Financial Technical Assistance teams to Turkey, Iran, China and Egypt. Further, he has worked as a Lead Specialist for Derivatives and Asset-Liability Management in the World Bank. He also has considerable experience of working on foreign policy issues related to Central Asia, Europe, Russia, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Cuba. Dr. Bhagwati has contributed chapters to several books on financial and economic topics and is a regular columnist in the Business Standard (an Indian financial daily newspaper).

Dr. Bhagwati graduated and earned his Master’s degree in Physics from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi University. He obtained his Master’s degree in Finance from Sloan School, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Ph. D. in Finance from Tufts University, USA. He has also participated in Executive Development Programmes in the Harvard Business School.

Dr. Bhagwati is married and has one daughter.

09 January, 2009