Indian-American Vikram Singh appointed to the Senior Executive Service of Pentagon

Indian-American Vikram Singh, an expert on Afghanistan and Pakistan and a close aide of late diplomat Richard Holbrooke, was appointed to an important position of deputy assistant secretary of defence for South and South East Asia at the Pentagon. He replaced Robert Scher who has been assigned as deputy assistant secretary of defence for plans.

Vikram J Singh was appointed to the Senior Executive Service and is assigned as deputy assistant secretary of defence for south and Southeast Asia. Prior to his current assignment Singh served as special assistant, Office of the Under Secretary of Defense (Policy).

Before joining Holbrooke's staff, he was senior director for counter-insurgency policy at the Pentagon and a member of the Department of Defence team for the White House Strategy Review for Afghanistan and Pakistan. From 1999 through 2001, Vikram managed a five-country Ford Foundation project on minority rights and security in Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka at the International Centre for Ethnic Studies in Colombo.