Ambassador Rajendra Abhyankar was Professor of Practice of Diplomacy and Public Affairs at the O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs, Indiana University, Bloomington during 2012-2019. He taught a masters course on the Practice of Diplomacy and a capstone course for the master’s level. He joined the Indian Foreign Service in 1968 and retired in August 2005 as India’s Ambassador to the EU, Belgium and Luxembourg. He was Secretary, Ministry of External Affairs Government of India from 2001 to 2004.

Ambassador Abhyankar has been involved in a range of work non-profit and corporate organizations, academics and Track II non-official inter-governmental dialogue. He has been a member of a number of Indian government committees including India-European Union Round-Table on Civil Society, India-EU High Level Trade Group and Ministry of North East Region’s Steering Committee on the 2020 Vision Document. He the author of Syria: the Tragedy of a Pivotal State’ (Springer-Macmillan, October 2020)