THE first woman Commissioner for India in Hongkong will take up her new position next week. Mrs Kamlesh Kumar, 52, has enjoyed a long and varied career with the Indian Diplomatic Corps. Her first posting in 1965 was as a third secretary to the permanent Indian mission in Geneva. She later worked at the Delhi headquarters of the Ministry for External Affairs as an under secretary, and then as first secretary of the commercial division in Bangkok. Back in Delhi, she was deputy secretary of the cabinet secretariat, before becoming secretary for the Indian Council for Cultural Relations. She then became a director at the Ministry for External Affairs and then a regional passport officer. She then became director of the economic division of the Ministry for External Affairs and was then posted to Hamburg in Germany, representing her country as consul general. Afterwards Mrs Kumar became a minister for India in Bonn, and before her posting to Hongkong she was appointed joint secretary at the Ministry of External Affairs. Mrs Kumar is married with one son.
