Arundhati Ghose is a former Indian diplomat. She attained celebrity as head of the Indian delegation that participated in the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) negotiations at the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva

Geneva

Geneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...

 in 1996.

Early life

Ghose comes from a prominent Bengali

Bengali people

The Bengali people are an ethnic community native to the historic region of Bengal in South Asia. They speak Bengali , which is an Indo-Aryan language of the eastern Indian subcontinent, evolved from the Magadhi Prakrit and Sanskrit languages. In their native language, they are referred to as বাঙালী...

 family. She is a sister of Ruma Pal

Ruma Pal

Justice Ruma Pal was a judge of the Supreme Court of India until her retirement on June 3, 2006.She read for her B.C.L degree at St. Anne's College, Oxford and started practice in 1968 in Civil, Revenue, Labour and Constitutional matters in the Calcutta High Court...

, a former Supreme court

Supreme Court of India

The Supreme Court of India is the highest judicial forum and final court of appeal as established by Part V, Chapter IV of the Constitution of India...

 judge, and of Bhaskar Ghose, former chairman of Prasar Bharati

Prasar Bharati

Prasar Bharati is India's largest public broadcaster. It is an autonomous body set up by an Act of Parliament and comprises Doordarshan television network and All India Radio which were earlier media units of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India.Prasar Bharati was...

. Bhaskar's daughter, Sagarika Ghose and her husband Rajdeep Sardesai

Rajdeep Sardesai

Rajdeep Sardesai is an Indian journalist, political commentator and news presenter. Sardesai is the Editor-in-Chief of IBN18 Network, that includes CNN-IBN, IBN-7 and IBN-Lokmat.- Biography :...

 are prominent journalists who presently run the Indian arm of the CNN-IBN news channel. Ghose is also an aunt of Sanjay Ghose

Sanjay Ghose

Sanjoy Ghose was an Indian rural development activist known for his pioneering contributions to community health and development media...

, a social worker who was abducted and killed by ULFA in Assam in 1997.

Ghose grew up in Mumbai

Mumbai

Mumbai , formerly known as Bombay in English, is the capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the most populous city in India, and the fourth most populous city in the world, with a total metropolitan area population of approximately 20.5 million...

 and studied at Cathedral and John Connon School

Cathedral and John Connon School

The Cathedral and John Connon School is a co-educational, private school located in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India, established in 1860.According to the Education World-C fore Survey of Schools 2010, the school has been ranked first in the all India ranking of the best schools in India.It was ranked...

. She graduated from Lady Brabourne College in Kolkata

Kolkata

Kolkata , formerly known as Calcutta, is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal. Located on the east bank of the Hooghly River, it was the commercial capital of East India...

 and went on to study at Visva-Bharati University

Visva-Bharati University

Visva Bharati University is a Central University for research and teaching in India, located in the twin towns of Santiniketan and Sriniketan in the Indian state of West Bengal. It was founded by Rabindranath Tagore who called it Visva Bharati, which means the communion of the world with India...

, in Shantiniketan, before joining the Indian Foreign Service

Indian Foreign Service

The Indian Foreign Service is the foreign service of India. It is the body of career diplomats of India.The Indian Foreign Service is part of the Central Civil Services of the Government of India...

in 1963.

Diplomat

In 1996 Ghose was deputed to head India's delegation to the CTBT conference in Geneva. India was a key participant at this conference, being one of only three countries that possessed nuclear technology and yet remained unrecognized as a nuclear power and outside the ambit of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT). Indeed, the CTBT had been devised expressly to bring such countries under an international system of obligations. In keeping with its long standing and oft-enunciated policy, India declined to endorse any regimen that permitted some countries to retain nuclear weaponry while limiting the ability of other countries to develop similar capabilities of their own.