Richard Verma Dubs Sandhu A ‘World Class’ Diplomat

WASHINGTON, DC (IANS) – Outgoing Indian Ambassador  Taranjit Singh Sandhu, is being hosted to a number of farewell parties.

“Elton (John) did about 340 shows for his farewell,” Deputy Secretary of State Richard Verma said, recalling one of the shows that he had himself attended.

He added that he has been keeping track of Sandhu’s farewell, which could rival the British singer Elton John’s “Farewell Yellow Brick Road“.

Verma was speaking at an event hosted by the State Department for Sandhu on January 25.

Sandhu is leaving after four years as Ambassador to the United States.

This was his fourth stint in the US starting out as a first secretary at the Washington DC embassy in 1997. He returned to US to serve at the Indian mission to the UN and came back in 2017 to serve as deputy chief of mission at the embassy in Washington DC.

Sandhu and Verma have known each from the former’s first stint, when Verma was a congressional aide. Verma would go on to serve as the US ambassador to India.

Recalling their long association over the years, Verma said: “Your ability to get things done. Your ability to deliver for people is truly amazing. And so you’re not only a world-class diplomat, you’re also someone who we all count as a friend.”

Also recounting their long association and the arc of the India-US relationship over those years, Sandhu said: “We have actually gone through ups and downs. I mean the relationship today when we look back is definitely at a very different level. And that makes me feel very satisfied, very happy.”

Health and education would become a key focus area for Sandhu’s ambassadorship, along usual strategic and economic ties. He spoke at the event about feeling “passionately” about education “because my parents came here to study in this country in 1956”.

They returned to India two years later, with a doctorate for his mother.