By Our Reporter Harsh Vardhan Shringla has been appointed new foreign secretary of India. The Indian government appointed Shringla to the top diplomatic post on Monday. He will replace Vijay Gokhale, who is retiring on January 28, 2020, completing his two-year term. Shringla is now serving as Indian ambassador to the United States. Shringla is the 33rd foreign secretary of India. Harsh Vardhan Shringla joined the Foreign Service in 1984. He served as an ambassador to Bangkok from 2014 to 2016 and later as a High Commissioner to Dhaka for two years. He has also served at UNESCO in France, UN in New York besides Vietnam, Israel and South Africa. He served in the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) as Joint Secretary for Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Maldives and therefore understands the neighbourhood well. Meanwhile, Indian ambassador to Nepal Manjib Singh Puri has also retired. He has already met with President Bidya Devi Bhandari and Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli before returning home. Envoy Puri, who was appointed to the post in March 2017, had played an important role to improve Nepal-India relations which had gone sour during the tenure of Ranjit Ray.