{"id":32301,"date":"2026-10-13T12:37:22","date_gmt":"2026-10-13T10:37:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.festivaldelladiplomazia.eu\/speakers\/vani-sarraju-rao\/"},"modified":"2026-10-13T12:40:00","modified_gmt":"2026-10-13T10:40:00","slug":"vani-sarraju-rao","status":"publish","type":"speakers","link":"https:\/\/www.festivaldelladiplomazia.eu\/en\/speakers\/vani-sarraju-rao\/","title":{"rendered":"Vani Sarraju Rao"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Ambassador of the Republic of India,<br>Ms. Vani Rao is a career diplomat who served the Government of India since 1994. She holds the rank of Secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs. From August 2020 to March 2024, she led the Americas Division in the Ministry of External Affairs which dealt with India\u2019s relations with USA, Canada and the Quad framework.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Prior to that, she was Ambassador to Finland and Estonia from 2017 to 2020, and Joint Secretary, spearheading programmes and initiatives for engagement with the Indian Diaspora (2014 to 2017).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>She served from 2011 to 2014 as Deputy Chief of Mission in the Embassy of India, Israel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Her other diplomatic assignments were at the Indian Missions in Mexico and Sweden. She also served as Under Secretary in Europe West Division and Director (Americas) in the Ministry of External Affairs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>She has an M.A. in Political Science from the University of Hyderabad, India, and an M.S. in Environmental Studies from the San Jose State University in California, USA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>She speaks English, Telugu, Hindi and Spanish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>She assumed charge as India\u2019s Ambassador to Italy on 3rd April 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>She is India\u2019s Permanent Representative to the Rome-based UN agencies, Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO); World Food Programme (WFP) and International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":32299,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Vani Sarraju Rao - Festival della Diplomazia<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Ambassador of the Republic of India,Ms. Vani Rao is a career diplomat who served the Government of India since 1994. 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