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Permanent Representative of Singapore to the United Nations Office and other International Organizations in Geneva
Mr. Umej Bhatia is Singapore’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations Office in Geneva since August 2019. He is concurrently accredited as Singapore’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations Office at Vienna, Permanent Representative to the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization and Resident Representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna.
In 1995, Mr Bhatia worked for the Television Corporation of Singapore, where he produced and presented the current affairs programme “Talking Point”. Mr Bhatia joined the Foreign Service in 1996 and has served in various capacities on issues covering Southeast Asia, Middle East and the United Nations in the Ministry’s headquarters. He served, inter alia, as First Secretary in Singapore’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations in New York from 1999 to 2003, Singapore’s first resident Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates from January 2013 to December 2016 and Director-General, Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia from January 2017 to May 2019.
Mr Bhatia is a member of the Advisory Board of the University of Geneva’s Masters of the Advanced Studies Programme in European and International Governance (MEIG) and a member of the Advisory Council of InterPeace in Geneva. He also serves as the Co-Chair of the Group of Friends of Research for the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime in Vienna. Mr Bhatia was awarded the Public Administration Medal (Bronze) by the Singapore Government in 2008 and the Long Service Medal in 2019. In 2016, Mr Bhatia was conferred the Order of Independence (First Class) by the President of the United Arab Emirates. Mr Bhatia graduated with a Bachelor of Arts with Double First-Class Honours from the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom in 1995 under a Singapore Broadcasting Corporation scholarship. He obtained a Master of Arts in Regional Studies (Middle East) from Harvard University, USA, in 2005 under a Ministry.