India’s former Foreign Secretary Nirupama Menon Rao sat atop the Ministry of External Affairs hierarchy, handling classified diplomatic cables, bilateral security frameworks, and sensitive back-channel communications between nations has now gone fully woke with her diplomacy. She is suggesting a “women’s caucus”, another fancy term for Aman Ki Asha to engage with terror state Pakistan. She’s basically proposing that a muscular India which hits back at Pakistan furiously shouldn’t be a policy. When such a figure
The women of India and Pakistan need to deploy our ingrained common sense and suggest ways forward in our relationship. We need a women’s caucus. Not to throw accusations against each other but to think calmly and sensibly about the future ahead. For the sake of our children.… https://t.co/8xyaITcJ1L
— Nirupama Menon Rao 🇮🇳 (@NMenonRao) March 30, 2026
Such statements from a person of such stature doesn’t come out of the blue.
It is an ecosystem that is putting this forward and amplifying.
And as expected, there is a connection to George Soros, the notorious anarchist. Nirupama is on the board of a Soros-linked organisation that has repeatedly pushed narratives indistinguishable from Pakistan’s foreign policy talking points. The question is no longer academic – it is a national security concern.
Who Is On The Board?
Nirupama Menon Rao, who served as India’s Foreign Secretary from 2009 to 2011 and previously as Ambassador to the United States, China, and Sri Lanka, formally joined the Board of Trustees of the International Crisis Group (ICG) in 2024. She is listed on the ICG website as “Former Foreign Secretary of India and former Indian Ambassador to the United States”.
Former NSA and Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon is also on the same board, meaning two of India’s most senior UPA-era diplomats with access to classified security and diplomatic intelligence now sit on the governing body of this organisation.
What Is ICG and Who Funds It?
The International Crisis Group is a Brussels-headquartered think-tank that positions itself as a conflict resolution organisation. It receives significant funding from George Soros’s Open Society Foundations. Soros has been openly hostile toward Prime Minister Modi and the Indian government – he called Modi “no democrat” – he said, “India is a democracy, but its leader Narendra Modi is no democrat. Inciting violence against Muslims was an important factor in his meteoric rise” and declared his intention to see a change in India’s leadership. Soros can be characterised as an “economic war criminal” who had “declared his ill intention to intervene in democratic processes of India”.
ICG’s Track Record on India
ICG’s body of work on India is not neutral academic analysis – it consistently echoes Pakistani state positions on Kashmir. In a 37-page report in August 2020, ICG:
- Described Kashmir as being under “Indian military occupation”
- Called on India’s allies to “pressure” New Delhi to relax its Kashmir approach
- Used language such as “forcible suppression of Kashmiri dissent”
- Warned of “dire consequences” of India’s actions in its own sovereign territory
The report was celebrated and republished by Pakistani state-linked media as international validation of Pakistan’s Kashmir narrative. ICG’s India-Pakistan Kashmir page continues to frame the issue as a bilateral dispute requiring Indian concessions, directly mirroring Islamabad’s stated foreign policy position.
The Conflict of Interest?
Nirupama Menon Rao was not a mid-level bureaucrat. As Foreign Secretary she was the seniormost official of India’s MEA – privy to the most sensitive details of India’s diplomatic postures, back-channels with Pakistan, intelligence-sharing frameworks, and strategic red lines. She held these positions during the period immediately following 26/11, when India-Pakistan diplomatic architecture was most fragile and consequential. She subsequently joined the board of an organisation that:
- Is funded by a man who has publicly declared intent to destabilise India’s government
- Produces reports that Pakistani media uses as international pressure tools against India
- Frames India’s sovereign decisions on Kashmir as human rights violations
No Law, But A Clear Ethical Gap
India currently has no post-retirement cooling-off or affiliation restriction for IFS officers joining foreign-funded geopolitical organisations, unlike the strict norms that apply to defence and intelligence personnel. This is the legal gap that allows a former Foreign Secretary to sit on the board of a Soros-funded body without any regulatory scrutiny. The FCRA Amendment 2026, which many in Nirupama Rao‘s circles have publicly opposed, is precisely designed to address foreign-funded influence on Indian policy discourse. The irony is stark.
India asks serving diplomats to sign secrecy oaths that bind them for life. It is a reasonable question to ask whether those oaths have any practical meaning when the officials who signed them can, upon retirement, join the governing boards of organisations funded by those openly working against India’s democratic integrity and territorial positions.
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