New Delhi: Newly-appointed US ambassador-designate Eric Garcetti arrived in India on Tuesday night, more than two years after the then US envoy Kenneth Juster stepped down from the post when Joe Biden took charge as the president of the United States.
Considered a close aide of Biden, Garcetti received confirmation to the post from the US Senate around a month ago. The former Los Angeles mayor was nominated to the high-profile post of the Ambassador to India over two years ago.
The nomination, however, was not confirmed by the Senate earlier following concerns by some lawmakers that Garcetti, as then Los Angeles mayor, had not adequately handled allegations of sexual assault and harassment against one of his aides.
“Namaste, Ambassador-Designate Eric Garcetti! We’re thrilled to welcome you to #IncredibleIndia and work with you to build even stronger ties between our two great nations,” the US Embassy in India tweeted.
The Embassy has been without an ambassador since January 2021, perhaps the longest such stretch in the history of US-India relations. Juster, the last US envoy to New Delhi, stepped down in January 2021 after Biden became the US president.
In his turn, Garcetti is known as a committed public official, educator, and diplomat. He was confirmed in a bipartisan vote as the 25th US Ambassador to India on March 15.
After serving 12 years as a Los Angeles city council member, Garcetti was elected as the 42nd Mayor of Los Angeles in 2013. He was then the youngest mayor in Los Angeles history, and was re-elected in 2017 with the widest margin ever recorded in the city.
Garcetti also served as a naval officer in the reserve component for 12 years and was selected as Rockefeller Next Generation Leadership Fellow, an inaugural Asia 21 Fellow of the Asia Society, a Young Fellow of the French-American Foundation, a Rodel Fellow at the Aspen Institute, and a Reboot Fellow.
In 2005, he was awarded the New Frontier Award given each year by the Kennedy family and Kennedy Library to a young elected official who embodies President Kennedy’s vision of service.
Garcetti earned a BA degree at Columbia College, Columbia University as a John Jay Scholar. He studied Hindi and Indian culture and history while at Columbia and went on to earn a Master’s degree at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs.
After graduating, Garcetti was selected as a Rhodes Scholar, studying at The Queen’s College, Oxford and the London School of Economics and Political Science. In England, he met his now-wife Amy Elaine Wakeland, who was a fellow member of his Rhodes Scholar class.
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