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.
