Indian American Shalini Dewan is UN officer
Friday, 20 August 2004, 19:30 IST
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UNITED NATIONS: Indian-American Shalini Dewan has been appointed director of the UN Information Centre in New Delhi by Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Dewan, director of the centre in Rome till December 2003 and later assigned to Brussels to set up a regional centre for Western Europe, succeeds Feodor Starcevic who has retired from the agency, a UN statement said. Armed with a master's in journalism and a bachelor's degree in English, French and psychology from Panjab University, India-born Dewan started her career in New Delhi as a journalist with a leading English newspaper and then the Children's Book Trust. Her career with the UN started in 1978 as an information officer in the Department of Public Information in New York, after which she served as a correspondent for Inter Press Service in the city in 1981. She moved to the UN Information Service in Vienna in 1986 and took a seven-month assignment as deputy regional director with the agency's transition assistance group in Namibia in 1989. An American citizen since 1983, Dewan has also worked with the Food and Agriculture Organisation and UN Children's Fund during a 26-year career with the UN system.
Source: IANS