Shyam Saran (born September 4, 1946) was Foreign Secretary with the Government of India.
He is a 1970 batch Indian Foreign Service officer. Before this, he has served as Indian Ambassador to Nepal, Indonesia and Myanmar, High Commissioner to Mauritius, Joint Secretary in the Prime Minister's Office, Deputy Chief of Mission in Tokyo and Counsellor in the Indian Embassy in Beijing.
In 2011, he was honoured with the Padma Bhushan by the Government of India.
Contents |
As foreign secretary, he visited China in March 2005 for the 15th meeting of the India-China Joint Working Group on the boundary issue.
In April 2006, he said that India has no obligation to define its minimum credible nuclear-deterrent after United States Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher suggested that India "further define" its minimum deterrent. During his tenure, Saran helped negotiate the U.S.–India Civil Nuclear Agreement.
Even though the Prime Minister's Office was willing to extended his tenure as foreign secretary when he was set to retire in September 2006, Mr. Saran did retire. He was an advisor to the Prime Minister specializing in nuclear issues, as well as the Indian envoy on climate change. He quit office on 19th February 2010. He is current Chairman of the Research and Information Systems for Developing Countries (RIS) thinktank and Senior Fellow at the Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi.