Rukma Shumsher Rana is Nepal envoy to India

KATHMANDU: The Nepal government has named Doon School-educated and Kolkata-born Rukma Shumsher Rana as its new ambassador to India, a post that had been lying vacant for the past over eight months.

The name of Rana, the son of founding leader of Nepali Congress Suvarna Shumsher Rana, was proposed at a meeting of Nepal's Cabinet, sources said. However, his nomination will have to be endorsed by the Parliamentary Hearing Committee before his appointment to the post.

The Cabinet also proposed the name of economist Shanker Sharma as the Nepalese ambassador to United States.

The post of Indian envoy to Nepal was lying vacant since November last year when the then Maoist government recalled Durgesh Man Sigh, a Nepali Congress appointee.

The Prachanda-led Maoist government had named economist Chandra Kanta Poudel as the new envoy to New Delhi but before he could get endorsement, the government fell.

Rana's father Suvarna was associated with the 'Mukti Sena' which fought against the then Rana regime in Nepal and had spent years in exile in India.

Born in Calcutta on March 12, 1936, Rana got education from Prince of Wales and Doon School, Milfield School, and St Xavier's College in Darjeeling. He got an MA degree from an American university.

The 73-year-old was also the President of Nepal Olympic Committee and Nepal-India Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

-PTI