Veena Sikri

Sikri joined the Indian Foreign Service in 1971.^[5] From 1977 to 1981, she was stationed at the Permanent Mission of India to the United Nations.^[5]

From 1989 to 1992, Sikri was the Director General of the Indian Council for Cultural Relations.^[5]

Sikri was the Consul General of India in Hong Kong from 1996 to 2000.^[5]

From 2000 to 2003, Sikri was the High Commissioner of India to Malaysia.^[5] She was appointed the High Commissioner of India to Bangladesh in 2003.^[5] She resigned from the Indian Foreign Service on 26 September 2006 after her junior Shiv Shankar Menon was appointed Foreign Secretary of India by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.^[6] Her husband Rajiv Sikri. also an officer of the same batch as her, resigned from the Indian Foreign Service for the same reason earlier.^[6][7][8]

From 2008 to 2011, Sikri was a visiting researcher at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies based in Singapore.^[5] She is the Vice Chairperson of the India chapter of the South Asia Foundation.^[5] She co-edited Contemporarising Tagore and the World with Muchkund Dubey and Imtiaz Ahmed.^[5]

Sikri is the chairperson of the Bangladesh Studies program at the Academy of International Studies of Jamia Millia Islamia and endowed by the Ford Foundation.^[9] She is the convenor of South Asia Women Network.^[6] In 2014, she credited Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina for removing terrorism from Bangladesh and called for out of the box thinking for removing problems between India and Bangladesh.^[3]

In January 2024, Sikri said Bangladesh Nationalist Party boycotting the general election would not harm the legitimacy of the election.^[10][11] She appreciated the Indian government maintaining a neutral position during the 2024 Quota reform movement in Bangladesh.^[12]

Sikri's husband, Rajiv Sikri, was also a diplomat of India.^[4]