After more than four decades, India is fielding a candidate for the post of regional director in World Health Organisation (WHO). India has decided to propose the name of Dr Poonam Kshetrapal for the post of regional director of South-East Asian region. Sixty-four-year old Kshetrapal is currently deputy regional director in the organisation.

WHO has six regions and the South-East Asian region is the largest with 11 countries under it, namely Bangladesh, Bhutan, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea,  India, Indonesia, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Timor-Leste.

The regional divisions of WHO were created between 1949 and 1952, and are based on article 44 of WHO's constitution, which allowed the World Health Assembly to "establish a (single) regional organization to meet the special needs of (each defined) area". Many decisions are made at regional level, including importance discussions over WHO's budget, and in deciding the members of the next assembly, which are designated by the regions.

Each region has a Regional Committee, which generally meets once a year, normally in the autumn. Representatives attend from each member or associative member in each region, including those states that are not fully recognised. Each Regional Office is headed by a Regional Director, who is elected by the Regional Committee. The Board must approve such appointments, although as of 2004, it had never overruled the preference of a regional committee.

The first regional director for South-East Asian region was Dr C Mani from India who served for two decades, i.e. from 1948 to 1968. After that VTH Gunaratne from Sri Lanka (1968-1981), U Koko from Myanmar (1981-1994) and Uton Rafei from Indonesia (1994-2004) served as regional directors of South-East Asian region in WHO. All this while, India never even proposed anybody’s candidature from the country for the post.

Since 1999, Regional Directors serve for a once-renewable five-year term. Current South-East Asian regional director is Dr Samlee Plianbangchang of Thailand who is serving his second term.

Although the announcement for the election is due in March 2013 and the election is proposed to be held in September 2013, India has already named its candidature for proper lobbying.