THE UK government on Thursday (February 6) announced career diplomat Sir Philip Barton as the new British high commissioner to India.
Barton, 56, who had been private secretary to former prime ministers John Major and Tony Blair, was the British high commissioner to Pakistan from 2014 to 2016.
Barton currently is the director general of Consular and Security at the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), and was the acting chair of the Joint Intelligence Committee at the UK Cabinet Office. He has served as additional director for South Asia at the FCO.
Barton would take charge in New Delhi in the coming weeks of spring. His first stint in India was in 1994, when he was posted as a first secretary at the embassy.
Barton has worked in the Cabinet Office as director of foreign policy, and was Afghanistan-Pakistan coordinator in the National Security Council.
The diplomat was recently on secondment to the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) as a consulting senior fellow focusing on South Asian issues.
An alumnus of the University of Warwick and the London School of Economics, Barton studied politics and economics before joining the FCO in 1986.
Nirmala Sitharaman speaks at the India-UK Investor Roundtable in London last Wednesday (9). On the panel were India’s department of economic affairs secretary Ajay Seth and Kotak Mahindra Bank founder Uday Kotak
Sitharaman with Sir Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves
Sitharaman with Jonathan Reynolds 
Sitharaman with Reynolds, Alastair King, India’s high commissioner Vikram Doraiswami and other delegates
