Professor Manu Bhagavan, of Hunter College and CUNY, speaks on the life and work of Indian diplomat and politician Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit. For the fifth GTI Professor Manu Bhagavan speaks on the life and work of Indian diplomat and politician Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit. Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit was the first woman to be elected president of the United Nations General Assembly, in 1953. A prominent politician and active Indian nationalist, she was also the first Indian woman to hold a cabinet position in pre-independent India. As newly-independent India's top diplomat, Pandit served as ambassador to the Soviet Union (1947-49), the United States and Mexico (1949-51), Ireland (1955-61), and Spain (1958-61), and high commissioner to the United Kingdom (1955-61). In 1979, she was appointed India's representative to the UN Human Rights Commission. Pandit was an Honorary Fellow of Somerville College.