Sujatha Singh

Sujatha Singh (born July 1954) is an Indian civil servant of the IFS cadre who served as India's Foreign Secretary from August 2013 to January 2015.

In Delhi she has served on the Ministry's Economic Co-ordination Unit and dealt with Nepal, West Europe and the EU as director, undersecretary and joint secretary.

[5] Her tenure as High Commissioner to Australia was marked by turbulence in Indo-Australian ties following racial attacks on Indian students and later by the Australian Labour Party's decision to make an exception for India regarding the sale of uranium.

She has a reputation for toughness, volunteering as a liaison officer on a rain-hit Kailash Manasarovar Yatra in 1983,[6] taking a tough stance with the Australian authorities on dealing with the racial attacks against Indians there,[3] and, as joint secretary handling Western Europe, she advocated India's stance of not accepting prescriptive aid from small European Union nations.

Though Singh was senior by tenure, her appointment as foreign secretary over S. Jaishankar was criticised by citing her inexperience in holding key diplomatic offices.