Neelam Deo has served as the Indian Ambassador to Denmark and Ivory Coast with concurrent accreditation to Niger, Guinea, and Sierra Leone. She has also served in the Indian embassies in Rome, Bangkok and Washington D.C., where she liaised with the U.S. Congress, the State Department, and the National Security Council on strategic issues. Her last assignment was as Consul General in New York from 2005 to 2008.
During the course of her assignments in the Ministry of External Affairs, she held the position of Joint Secretary for the divisions dealing with Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and the Maldives. At different times over the course of her career, she has dealt with Bhutan, South East Asia and the Pacific, as well as countries in West Asia and North Africa.
She is an invited speaker on strategic issues and India-U.S. relations at numerous think tanks and universities, in India, Europe and the United States.
Apart from her articles and commentaries written exclusively for Gateway House, Neelam occasionally writes for mainstream publications, and is a frequent commentator for television news channels.
She has a Master’s degree from the Delhi School of Economics and serves on the Editorial Advisory Board of the Indian Foreign Affairs Journal.
She is also a member of the board of Oxfam India and is a trustee of Breakthrough (a human rights organization).
She is an independent director on the boards of Mahindra CIE Automotive Limited and Mahindra Defence Systems Limited.
Expertise
Africa, Foreign Policy, India's Bilateral Relations, USA
An expert workshop on reinvigorating the UN, offered an opportunity for scholars, think tanks and members of civil society to revisit the many contradictions that plague it 75 years after it was formed. An assessment of some of the issues that persist
India's foreign policy under the second Modi government will take account of a turbulent world in which the old verities are disappearing and domestic political compulsions exert overwhelming influence on external postures
The Indian elections 2019, being conducted over seven phases, reaffirm all the values electoral democracy stands for, but this time, it has also become a referendum on Prime Minister Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party which had won a clear majority in 2014. Outcomes are therefore unpredictable
The imperative for India to move away from its non-aligned posture is now, especially if it wants to be consequential in the global reordering underway. This will play out in the contention between the U.S. on one side, and China and Russia on the other.
Speakers at the seventh Atlantic Dialogues, held in Morocco earlier this month, discussed what the challenge to western dominance and China’s expansionism meant for their political and economic future
China’s large investments in Sri Lanka, Pakistan and the Maldives and the economic dependence this creates make it impervious to the internal political upheavals in these countries. This blog explores how it will retain its influence in Sri Lanka regardless of how the turmoil is resolved
China recently celebrated 40 years since it began its successful poverty reduction effort, at a conference in Beijing. While lauding China's efforts, experts do recognise that different formulations work for different countries
The current political unrest in Sri Lanka and coups in Maldives and Zimbabwe bear a Chinese imprint. China’s use of strong-arm tactics smacks of the very behaviour that it had earlier criticised in former colonial powers
The world order that came about in the aftermath of World War II was a western-oriented construct that has become obsolete in many ways. The changes underway offer India an opportunity to participate in the crafting of political and economic institutions that are more pertinent to the emerging geopolitical equations
This speech was delivered at ‘Industry Meet 2018’, organised by the Indian Institute of Management, Indore, in collaboration with the Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India, on 7 July 2018