Episode 8: Ambassador Ruchira Kamboj On What It Means To Be A Diplomat

Episode 8 of A Cup of Context presents Ambassador Ruchira Kamboj! She topped the 1987 civil services exam as the All-India women's rank holder, and walked into the Foreign Service as its batch topper too. What came next was close to four decades in very important rooms: Third Secretary in Paris, Consul General in Cape Town, India's first woman Chief of Protocol, First Female Ambassador to Bhutan, High Commissioner to South Africa. Then New York, where Ruchira Kamboj became the first woman ever to represent India at the United Nations, and the first Indian woman to chair the UN Security Council. There's India's claim to speak for the Global South, what that claim rests on, and where it strains. We get into the real texture of a diplomat's work, the part that never makes it into the photographs. The Women, Peace and Security agenda comes up: what it set out to do, and whether it has delivered. And since so many of you are deep in UPSC prep right now, she breaks down how the exam is built today and what she'd tell anyone staring down the prelims. Brew something; this one's worth your full attention!