Names: State’s Gandhi to Berman’s shop
The State Department’s Sajit Gandhi will join the professional staff of the House Foreign Affairs Committee to be Chairman Howard Berman’s (D-CA) new lead advisor on all things South Asia, The Cable has confirmed. Gandhi, a young and well-respected foreign affairs officer, currently works in the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research covering South ...
The State Department's Sajit Gandhi will join the professional staff of the House Foreign Affairs Committee to be Chairman Howard Berman's (D-CA) new lead advisor on all things South Asia, The Cable has confirmed.
The State Department’s Sajit Gandhi will join the professional staff of the House Foreign Affairs Committee to be Chairman Howard Berman’s (D-CA) new lead advisor on all things South Asia, The Cable has confirmed.
Gandhi, a young and well-respected foreign affairs officer, currently works in the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research covering South Asia and before that was on Af-Pak envoy Richard Holbrooke’s staff.
He replaces Jasmeet Ahuja, Berman’s previous South Asia advisor, who played a large role in the crafting of the $7.5 billion Kerry-Lugar-Berman Pakistan assistance package passed by Congress and signed into law by President Obama earlier this year. She began her studies at Stanford Law School this month.
Gandhi started out at State in 2004 as a foreign affairs officer, entering the diplomatic corps through the Presidential Management Fellowship program. Gandhi served as the action officer for South Asia in the office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism and as the political officer at the U.S. embassy in Colombo, Sri Lanka. He was also an advisor on South Asia in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, where he received a Meritorious Honor Award for his work on the State Department’s annual country reports on human rights.
He has also worked as an associate for the Cohen Group, a Washington-based business consulting firm, and as a research associate for the National Security Archive. He holds a master’s degree from the Georgetown School of Foreign Service and a bachelor’s degree from the Elliott School at the George Washington University. He is married to Bhumika Gandhi and the couple just welcomed to the world their first child, a beautiful girl named Seva.
Congrats to Sajit and the whole Gandhi family!
Josh Rogin covers national security and foreign policy and writes the daily Web column The Cable. His column appears bi-weekly in the print edition of The Washington Post. He can be reached for comments or tips at josh.rogin@foreignpolicy.com.
Previously, Josh covered defense and foreign policy as a staff writer for Congressional Quarterly, writing extensively on Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantánamo Bay, U.S.-Asia relations, defense budgeting and appropriations, and the defense lobbying and contracting industries. Prior to that, he covered military modernization, cyber warfare, space, and missile defense for Federal Computer Week Magazine. He has also served as Pentagon Staff Reporter for the Asahi Shimbun, Japan's leading daily newspaper, in its Washington, D.C., bureau, where he reported on U.S.-Japan relations, Chinese military modernization, the North Korean nuclear crisis, and more.
A graduate of George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs, Josh lived in Yokohama, Japan, and studied at Tokyo's Sophia University. He speaks conversational Japanese and has reported from the region. He has also worked at the House International Relations Committee, the Embassy of Japan, and the Brookings Institution.
Josh's reporting has been featured on CNN, MSNBC, C-Span, CBS, ABC, NPR, WTOP, and several other outlets. He was a 2008-2009 National Press Foundation's Paul Miller Washington Reporting Fellow, 2009 military reporting fellow with the Knight Center for Specialized Journalism and the 2011 recipient of the InterAction Award for Excellence in International Reporting. He hails from Philadelphia and lives in Washington, D.C. Twitter: @joshrogin
More from Foreign Policy
A New Multilateralism
How the United States can rejuvenate the global institutions it created.
America Prepares for a Pacific War With China It Doesn’t Want
Embedded with U.S. forces in the Pacific, I saw the dilemmas of deterrence firsthand.
The Endless Frustration of Chinese Diplomacy
Beijing’s representatives are always scared they could be the next to vanish.
The End of America’s Middle East
The region’s four major countries have all forfeited Washington’s trust.
Sign up for World Brief
FP’s flagship evening newsletter guiding you through the most important world stories of the day. Delivered weekdays.
By submitting your email, you agree to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use and to receive email correspondence from us. You may opt out at any time.