NEW DELHI (TIP): Former Deputy Consul-General of India in New York Devyani Khobragade has been appointed as the private secretary to Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment Ramdas Athawale.
A source close to the Republican Party of India chief said an order appointing Devyani was passed July 14.
Her father Uttam Khobragade, a former IAS officer, is the national executive president of RPI-A, which is part of the Bharatiya Janta Party-Shiv Sena-led Mahayuti (grand alliance) in Maharashtra, and had joined the party in September 2014.
The 1999-batch IFS officer was arrested on Dec. 12, 2013, in the U.S. when she was India’s deputy consul-general in New York on visa fraud charges and for allegedly providing false declarations in a visa application for her maid.
She later was released on a $250,000 bond.
The incident had triggered a diplomatic row between the U.S. and India