Krishnamoorthy back in Chennai as Lankan envoy

Former deputy high commissioner for Sri Lanka in India who served in Chennai between 2009 and 2012 has returned as the deputy chief of mission at the Sri Lanka deputy high commission in the city for a second stint. Ambassador Vadivel Krishnamoorthy, a senior career diplomat, took charge recently, the Times of India reported.

Earlier he was handpicked by former Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakshe for this important region after the end of the war against LTTE. Now Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena has reposed faith in this diplomat of Madurai origin. After the Chennai posting, Krishnamoorthy served as Sri Lanka’s ambassador in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and later as Sri Lankan high commissioner in Kenya before returning to Chennai. Chennai has been considered the most challenging posting for Sri Lankan diplomats.

Krishnamoorthy is the first diplomat of Indian Tamil origin to be posted in this sensitive diplomatic mission for the second time. Before his first Chennai stint as deputy high commissioner to India, he served as envoy in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Among his many achievements while being posted in Bangaladesh, the one that filled his heart was his having secured the hair-relic of the Lord Buddha to his country from a Buddhist monastery in Chittagong. The relic is being worshiped in a Buddhist shrine in Sri Lanka.

He hails from Nuwera Eliya in Sri Lanka, and had his schooling at Hatton Highlands College. He graduated from University of Peradeniya, and took a PG diploma in Educational Management at Maharagama and a masters in foreign affairs and trade from Monash University, Australia. His forefathers had migrated to Sri Lanka from Ramanathapuram district in Tamil Nadu, to work in tea estates in the central province of the island nation.

Krishnamoorthy had earlier served in various capacities in the Netherlands (2001-04) and China (1992-97). While serving as the minister counsellor at the embassy in the Netherlands, inter alia, he functioned as the deputy permanent representative to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).