Navtej Sarna is an Indian author-columnist, and diplomat, who is the present Indian Ambassador to Israel.
He was born in Jalandhar, India to noted writer in Punjabi, Mohinder Singh Sarna, and passed out of the 1980 Class of Indian Foreign Service. Before holding this post, he was Joint Secretary for external publicity at the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) , since October 2002, and holds the distinction of being the longest-serving spokesperson of the ministry, and served two prime ministers, three foreign ministers and four foreign secretaries, till the end of his term in September, 2008.
Previously as a diplomat served in Moscow, Warsaw, Thimphu, Geneva, Teheran and Washington, DC .
He also writes short stories, and book reviews. His first novel published was We Werent Lovers Like That in 2003, followed by The Book of Nanak in the same year, his latest, The Exile, published in 2008, is based on the life of Duleep Singh, the last Maharaja of Lahore, and son Raja Ranjit Singh. Currently, Zafarnama, an epistle of victory written to Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb, by the Tenth Sikh Guru, Gobind Singh, has been translated by him into English from Persian.