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Neichulieu Nikki Haralu[/caption]
Dimapur, September 2 : Former ambassador of India to Panama, the Costa Rica, and Nicaragua, Neichulieu Nikki Haralu, has passed on. Information late Friday night said that the former diplomat passed away at around 6:30 pm on September 2 at Zion Hospital in Dimapur. She was aged 98.
Haralu was of the Indian Foreign Service. She secured BA (Political Science & Economics) from Kolkata University, and MA (Social Science) from Haverford University in the US, before her joining the Indian government service in 1954 as an assistant research officer. She was appointed an information officer in 1955 in the Ministry of External Affairs before her assignment during 1958-1962 as a press attaché in the Indian Embassy in Brussels. In 1961, she was placed in the senior scale of the Indian Foreign Service of the Ministry of External Affairs.
In 1962, Haralu became the First Secretary of the Indian Embassy in Rome; later, as a deputy director in the Ministry of External Affairs during 1965-68. From 1968-1971, she was a first-secretary of the Embassy of India at Washington, and then a first-secretary to Colombo, followed by her assignment as director in the Ministry of External Affairs, from 1975-1978.
Haralu was then appointed India's ambassador to P
anama and concurrently accredited as Ambassador of Costa Rica and Nicaragua during 1978-80. She retired from the Indian Foreign Service in 1980. She was also chairman of the Nagaland State Social Welfare Advisory Board.
The eldest of eight siblings, Haralu was born on July 28, 1918, to the first Naga medical doctor Dr. Harielungbe Haralu of Poilwa village in Peren district and Rükhrieü of Kohima village under Kohima district, additional information from relatives said Friday. “From a young age, Neichülieü displayed the same bold pioneering spirit of her father as she put together the first choir group in Kohima where she sang Soprano, as the third Naga to venture out to study in the United States, and as she became the first Naga ambassador,” it said. “Her life is her legacy. And she lived it to the fullest.”
Chief Minister TR Zeliang has mourned the demise of Haralu, calling her a source of inspiration and a woman who proved herself capable. “I am deeply grieved to learn of the demise of Ms. Neichülieü Haralu this evening at Dimapur. Though she was older to me, she was a source of inspiration to me since childhood as we had heard so much of her achievements, despite the difficult times in which she lived,” the chief minister stated in a condolence message on Friday.
“She was not only the first career diplomat from the Zeliang community but also from among the Nagas as a whole, who went on to be appointed as the Indian Ambassador to Panama, Costa Rica, and Nicaragua,” Zeliang stated.
“She endeared herself to her people as a true ambassador of the Nagas. We have lost a precious family member who was indeed ahead of her times. She was able to prove to the people that Naga women are as capable as anyone.”
The chief minister prays for the departed soul to rest in peace.
The funeral service will be at 1:00pm at her residence in Burma Camp in Dimapur.