Seven years after the government had first announced plans to open its sixth consulate in the U.S. city of Seattle, home to many big technology companies, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has appointed its first Consul-General in Seattle. The envoy, Joint Secretary Prakash Gupta, is MEA’s point-person for all multilateral coordination on United Nations issues. He had earlier served in India’s permanent mission at the UN.
Sources said that the announcement of the consulate opening is expected to be made next week during the “2+2” talks on November 10 when U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and U.S. Defence Secretary Gen. Lloyd Austin visit Delhi. Mr. Gupta, who will head a two-man diplomatic mission with about 16 non-diplomatic and local staff, is expected to travel to Seattle in mid-November, to operationalise the consulate by the end of the month. Apart from the Indian Embassy in Washington, India maintains consulates in Atlanta, Chicago, Houston, New York, and San Francisco.
While the decision to open the mission was first announced in the 2016 India-U.S. joint statement, after talks between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and then U.S. President Barack Obama, the proposal that was to have accompanied a reciprocal U.S. plan to open new consulates in India, didn’t make much progress. The U.S. is now expected to open two new consulates as well, apart from the four at present in Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, and Mumbai. During his visit to Washington D.C. in June this year, Mr. Modi had repeated the proposal, and the India-U.S. joint statement said the new consulates were the outcome of “rapid growth in the strategic partnership and demand for travel”.
