Govt recommends Ambassadors to 13 countries (with short bio of proposed envoys)

Kathmandu / Sept 18: The government has recommended Ambassadors to 13 different countries including China, India and the USA.

A meeting of the Council of Ministers held on Friday took the decision to this effect.

Foreign Minister Shisir Khanal informed that experts in different sectors have been recommended for the Ambassadors.

The recommended Ambassadors will first face the parliamentary hearing and once they are okayed from the parliamentary committee, the government will send their names for Agreemo from the respective countries and after the Agreemo is received the President appoints the Ambassador.

Ambassador-Designate Bios (As provided by the MoFA secretariat)

1. Dr. Nishchal N. Pandey — Proposed Ambassador to India

Dr. Nishchal N. Pandey is one of Nepal’s most established foreign-policy academics, currently serving as Director of the Centre for South Asian Studies (CSAS). He previously served as Executive Director of the Institute of Foreign Affairs under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (1998–2006), and as an advisor to the National Planning Commission on tourism and civil aviation (1996–97). He was an expert with Nepal’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (2016) and a member of the Government of Nepal’s high-level task force on foreign policy (2017).

Dr. Pandey holds a Ph.D. in Political Science and a Bachelor’s degree in Law from Tribhuvan University. He is Honorary Adjunct Professor at the National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bengaluru, and a non-resident senior fellow at the Institute of South Asian Studies (ISAS), National University of Singapore, where he was previously a visiting research fellow. He has also held visiting fellowships at Germany’s SWP (Berlin) and the University of Hull (UK), and served on the board of the Regional Centre for Strategic Studies, Colombo (2011–2019). A widely published author with three books through SAGE and Manohar Publishers and a dozen edited volumes on Nepal’s foreign policy and regional cooperation, he completed the South Asia Leader Executive Program at Harvard Kennedy School in 2015.

2. Dr. Kalyan Raj Sharma — Proposed Ambassador to China

Dr. Kalyan Raj Sharma is a leading Nepal–China affairs specialist, Sinologist, and economist with over two decades of leadership across academia, institutional governance, and bilateral policy engagement. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Fudan University, China. He did research focused on foreign direct investment, trade, and tourism financing.

He currently chairs the Fudan University Alumni Association of Nepal, the Nepal–China Friendship Forum (since 2013), and the Council of Sinologists-Nepal, and serves as a Visiting Scholar at Kathmandu University School of Management, where he designed and teaches “Doing Business in China.”

He is also Managing Director of Adventure Outdoor Excursion Pvt. Ltd., promoting Himalayan and cross-border tourism, and serves on the independent boards of Apex Funds Limited and several hydropower and energy companies. His contributions to Nepal–China relations have been recognized with the Nepal Bhusan honor from the President of Nepal (2016) and the Silk Road Friendship Award (2021), for which he was one of only twelve recipients worldwide. He is a prolific commentator and conference speaker on Nepal–China economic diplomacy, trade, and Belt and Road cooperation.

3. Chiran Jung Thapa — Proposed Ambassador to the USA

Chiran Jung Thapa is a national-security and international-affairs specialist with two decades of experience across security policy, crisis management, and diplomacy. He holds an M.A. in International Affairs from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (full academic scholarship) and a B.A. in International Relations from SUNY Geneseo. Since 2017 he has served as Regional Security Adviser for Asia at Oxfam, overseeing risk management and crisis response across fifteen countries. He previously served as Regional Security and Justice Adviser for Asia at Saferworld (2013–2016) and as Security Sector/Civil-Military Relations Adviser at The Asia Foundation (2010–2013), where he advised Nepal’s Ministry of Defence, National Security Council, Nepali Army, and Nepal Police, and designed the Army’s first Civil-Military Relations curriculum. Earlier in his career he served at the Permanent Missions of Singapore and Nepal to the United Nations in New York. He is the first non-uniformed Nepali to complete Harvard Kennedy School’s Leadership in Homeland Security program and the first to receive the Chief of Army Staff Commendation twice. He was invited by the Indian Army as Nepal’s keynote speaker at the inaugural Chanakya Defence Dialogue in 2023, and has work experience spanning Nepal, the United States, the United Kingdom, and much of South and Southeast Asia.

4. General Gaurav Shumsher Jung Bahadur Rana (Retd) — Proposed Ambassador to the UK

General Gaurav Shumsher Jung Bahadur Rana (Retd) is a distinguished military leader and strategist who culminated over four decades of service in the Nepali Army as Chief of Army Staff (2012–2015). He directed the integration of former Maoist combatants into the Nepali Army under the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, guided the institution through Nepal’s transition to a federal democratic republic, and introduced the Army’s Ten-Year Perspective Plan and Military Doctrine 2013. As Chief of Army Staff, he directed Operation Sankat Mochan, Nepal’s military response to the 2015 earthquake, coordinating the participation of eighteen foreign military contingents in relief operations. His earlier senior commands included Chief of General Staff, Director General of Military Operations, and command of Nepal’s UNIFIL peacekeeping battalion in South Lebanon. He holds a Master of Science in Defense and Strategic Studies from Quaid-i-Azam University, Pakistan, and a B.A. in History and Political Science from Tribhuvan University, and is a graduate of the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst (UK), the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, and Pakistan’s National Defense University. He currently chairs the Conservation Alliance Nepal and is a frequent speaker at institutions including Harvard University, the International Institute for Strategic Studies (London), and the first United Nations Chiefs of Defense Conference.

5. Jigyan Kumar Thapa — Proposed Ambassador to Japan

Jigyan Kumar Thapa has dedicated more than twenty years to building the Nepal–Japan relationship. Holding an M.A. in International Relations and Law from Yokohama National University and a B.A. in International Cooperation from Shumei University, he has served since 2009 as an International Cooperation, Public Policy and Multicultural Affairs Specialist at the Kanagawa International Foundation, and since 2005 as coordinator of high-level Nepal–Japan bilateral engagements, facilitating visits and exchanges involving Presidents, Prime Ministers, and Foreign Ministers of both countries. He organized the Nepal–Japan business dialogue held during the Nepali President’s official visit to Japan in 2026, and has worked closely with JICA, UNICEF, and Japanese local governments on international cooperation and migration-governance initiatives. An advisor to the Japanese Chamber of Commerce in Nepal, former General Secretary of the Non-Resident Nepali Association (Japan), and former President of the Nepalese Students’ Association in Japan, he also holds adjunct teaching positions at several Japanese universities including Tsukuba, Aoyama Gakuin, and Nihon University. He is fluent in Japanese at JLPT Level 1 and has published extensively on Nepal–Japan relations and comparative public administration.

6. Suresh Kumar Karna — Proposed Ambassador to Israel

Suresh Kumar Karna is a senior IT, banking, and economic-policy leader with more than thirty years of executive experience. As Chief Information and Marketing Officer of Kumari Bank (2003–2015), he conceived and launched “Kumari Mobile Cash,” Nepal’s first mobile wallet, an achievement recognized with the MBillionth Award for South Asia, and later served as Chief Operating Officer of Nepal Bank Limited (2015–2019), leading its transformative migration to a unified Core Banking System. Since 2024 he has chaired Kumo Labs Pvt. Ltd., Nepal’s first Japan-backed foreign-direct-investment technology venture under the FDI and Technology Transfer Act 2019.

He served two consecutive terms as President of the Computer Association of Nepal (CAN Federation), was an ex-officio member of Nepal’s IT Council and High-Level Commission on Information Technology, and helped draft Nepal’s first National IT Policy (2000). He holds an MBA in International Trade, Investment and Infrastructure Economics from the Belt and Road School, Beijing Normal University, and is a Fellow of the Institution of Engineers (India).

His award record includes the National ICT Excellence Award (2019), and his international exposure spans ASOCIO summits, VISA global meetings, and information-security training with the Korea Information Security Agency. He began his career as an Inspector in Nepal Police, ranking first in his national academy batch.

7. Prapti Sherchan — Proposed Ambassador to Spain

Prapti Sherchan is a Nepali international-development and partnerships leader with fifteen years of experience spanning South Asia, Southeast Asia, and Africa. As Operations Officer for Gender Solutions and Impact at the International Finance Corporation (IFC), World Bank Group, since 2015, she leads IFC India’s Gender Country Program and has served as Asia Lead for IFC’s Women’s Insurance Program, scaling inclusive-finance partnerships that have reached over 1.3 million women and supported 9,500 jobs across Asia and Africa. She directed a multi-country commercial-banking research initiative spanning Nepal, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka, and led a ten-country regional study with the ASEAN Insurance Council that informed the adoption of mandatory sex-disaggregated workforce reporting. She holds an MBA in Sustainable International Development from Brandeis University’s Heller School and a B.A. in Sociology from the National University of Singapore. She has represented IFC in high-level forums including the World Bank Group–IMF Spring Meetings, and serves as U.S. Board Co-Chair of Women Lead Nepal and Co-Founder of the IFC Millennial+ Resource Group. She is fluent in Nepali, English, Hindi, and Urdu.

8. Sharu Joshi — Proposed Ambassador to Germany

Sharu Joshi is a senior policy leader with more than 25 years of experience in labour migration governance, gender equality, and international cooperation, widely recognized for having helped shape Nepal’s foundational migration framework, including contributions to the Foreign Employment Act (2007), Foreign Employment Regulations (2008), and Foreign Employment Policy (2012). She spent a decade with UN Women (2002–2012) as Regional Programme Manager and Labour Diplomacy Lead for South Asia, and later as Programme Specialist and Head of the Women’s Economic Empowerment Unit for UN Women Nepal (2012–2016), before serving as a Strategic Partnership Specialist (2016–2018). Since 2018 she has worked as an independent senior policy and international-relations consultant, serving as National Consultant to UN Women, advising the World Bank on post-COVID migrant reintegration, and representing Nepal at the Global Forum on Migration and Development and COP28. As an Executive Board Member of the Nepal Policy Institute since 2024, she leads national advocacy for out-of-country voting rights for Nepali migrant workers. She holds an M.A. in Women and Development from the Institute of Social Studies, The Hague, and an M.A. in Political Science from Tribhuvan University, and is the author of the book “Euta Sinko Bhachi Herda” along with more than sixty published articles on labour migration and gender.

9. Dr Padmakshi Rana — Proposed Ambassador to Oman

Padmakshi Rana is a development and entrepreneurship leader with more than fifteen years of experience at the intersection of sustainable development, inclusive innovation, and international collaboration across Nepal, Asia, and Europe. Since 2022 she has served as Executive Director and Co-Founder of Impact Hub Kathmandu, representing Nepal within the Impact Hub Global Association and its Asia-Pacific Regional Cluster, and building partnerships with UK Aid/FCDO, the European Union, UNDP, UNICEF, UNESCAP, the World Bank, and the Royal Academy of Engineering. She holds a Ph.D. from the Institute for Manufacturing, University of Cambridge, examining corporate social responsibility in food manufacturing, along with an MPhil in Environment, Society and Development, also from Cambridge, and an MBA from Webster University Thailand. Prior to Impact Hub, she held research and teaching posts at the University of Cambridge and co-founded The Inceptery, a Singapore-based sustainability innovation consultancy. A published researcher with international academic credibility, she has authored peer-reviewed work on sustainable business modelling and post-disaster tourism recovery in the Hindu Kush Himalaya, and is fluent in English and Nepali.

10. Chudamani Kharel — Proposed Ambassador to Malaysia

Chudamani Kharel is an education and public-administration professional with academic training spanning the humanities, English, political science, and law. He holds a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Arts in English, a further Master of Arts in Political Science, and a Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.), all from Tribhuvan University. He currently serves as General Secretary of the Nepal Yoga Sports Association, and has previously served as General Secretary of the Nepal Skating and Skateboard Association and as Member Secretary of the 7th National Games Sub-Committee under the National Sports Council, reflecting a sustained record of leadership in national sports administration. His academic career includes several years as a Lecturer in English at Cosmopolitan College and John Bauer College. Across these roles he has demonstrated strong administrative, legal-documentation, and organizational capabilities, along with a consistent commitment to institutional development and public service.

11. Prof. Dr. Sangam Shrestha — Proposed Ambassador to South Korea

Professor Sangam Shrestha is an internationally recognized academic leader and global policy expert with more than 25 years of experience in international cooperation, climate resilience, and water-security diplomacy. He currently serves as Professor and former Dean of the School of Engineering and Technology at the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), Thailand, and as Founding Co-Director of the Global Water & Sanitation Center. He has mobilized more than millions of dollars in international grants and partnerships with the Asian Development Bank, World Bank, Gates Foundation, United Nations agencies, the European Union, FAO, and UNESCO, and has worked closely with governments and diplomatic missions across more than thirty countries — including sustained engagement with Bangladesh’s Department of Public Health Engineering and its diplomatic community. He holds a Ph.D. in Integrated River Basin Management from the University of Yamanashi, Japan, and is the author of more than 200 peer-reviewed publications with an h-index of 52; he was ranked ninth globally in Climate Change and River Studies by ScholarGPS and has repeatedly been named to Stanford University’s Top 2% Scientists list. He holds concurrent visiting-professor appointments at Beijing Normal University and the National University of Laos, and has supervised more than twenty Ph.D. and 150 Master’s students from across Asia.

12. Dr. Manchala Jha — Proposed Ambassador to Sri Lanka

Dr. Manchala Jha is a governance and public-policy leader who served as a Commissioner of Nepal’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (2015–2019), contributing to national efforts on truth, justice, and reconciliation and representing the Commission at international forums on transitional justice, including a presentation of Nepal’s TRC experience in Sri Lanka. She is an Assistant Professor at Tribhuvan University, where she has also taught in the Master’s program on Governance and Anti-Corruption (2021–2024), and holds a Ph.D. in Hindi Literature from B.R. Ambedkar University, India, alongside master’s degrees in Political Science (with a specialization in Foreign Policy and Diplomacy) and Hindi Literature from Tribhuvan University. She served as an Invited Expert Member of the National Implementation and Oversight Committee for the UN Istanbul Programme of Action (2011–2020), and has trained government and civil-society stakeholders on Women, Peace and Security under UNSCR 1325 and 1820. A frequent election observer and media commentator on Nepali politics and governance, she was honored with the Mahendra Vidya Bhushan by the late King Birendra (1996) and is fluent in Nepali, Hindi, English, and Maithili.

13. Giri Bahadur Sunar — Proposed Ambassador to Saudi Arabia

Giri Bahadur Sunar is a social scientist and development leader with more than 25 years of experience across international development, policy advisory, and multi-stakeholder governance. His technical expertise spans social safeguards, gender-equality and social-inclusion (GESI) mainstreaming, community-based climate adaptation, and grievance-redress mechanisms, applied across major infrastructure and water-sector programmes for the World Bank and ADB. He is a Ph.D. scholar in Sociology at Tribhuvan University (M.Phil., 2019), and the author of the book “Empowering Women Through Self-Defense” (Scholars’ Press, Germany) as well as more than one hundred published policy columns in national dailies such as The Himalayan Times, The Annapurna Express, and Republica. A recognized public-diplomacy voice on national television, he serves as Secretary of Social, Environment and Rural Development Nepal (SERD-Nepal) and is fluent in Nepali, English, and Hindi.