Indian Ambassador to Nepal Naveen Srivastava has paid a courtesy call on Foreign Minister Dr. Bimala Rai Paudyal at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday.
During the meeting with Minister Rai Poudyal, Ambassador Srivastava handed over a letter of congratulations sent by Dr. S. Jaishankar, the External Affairs Minister of India, to her.
A cabinet meeting on Tuesday appointed Bimala Rai Paudyal as the foreign minister of Nepal. She is the third female foreign minister in Nepal's political history.
Prior to her, Nepali Congress leader Sujata Koirala, and Sahana Pradhan of the CPN-UML led the Ministry of Foreign Affairs after the restoration of democracy in 1990.
Paudyal, a member of the national assembly, served earlier as a member of the National Planning Commission.
She has a PhD in Development Studies from the Institute of Social Studies, the Hague, the Netherlands.
