Pandit, Vijaya Lakshmi

Pandit, Vijaya Lakshmi vĭjīˈə läkˈshmē pŭnˈdĭt [key], 1900–1990, Indian diplomat, sister of Jawaharlal Nehru. She played an active role in the Indian National Congress before Indian independence and was several times imprisoned. She was leader of the Indian delegation to the United Nations (1946–51), ambassador to the Soviet Union (1947–49) and to the United States (1949–51), president of the UN General Assembly (1953–54), and India's high commissioner to Great Britain (1955–61). From 1962 to 1964 she was governor of Maharashtra.

See her autobiography The Scope of Happiness (1979).

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