Former Foreign Secretary Jagat Singh Mehta dead

Udaipur: Former Foreign Secretary Jagat Singh Mehta died here following age-related ailments.

92-year-old Mehta was ailing for sometime and passed away at his residence yesterday. He served as foreign secretary between 1976 and 1979.

Born in 1922 to Mohan Singh Mehta, a member of the Constituent Assembly of India in 1947, Mehta was educated at Allahabad and Cambridge Universities. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 2002. Mehta was Charg d'affaires China (1963 1966) and High Commissioner to Tanzania (1970 1974).

He was Associate at Harvard (1969 and 1980) and Fellow at Woodrow Wilson Center, Washington in 1981. He had several books to his credit including Militarisation in the Third World (1985), The March of Folly in Afghanistan (2002) and Negotiating for India (2006).

Mehta's cremation would take place here tomorrow.