Ronen Sen has been asked to continue as India's Ambassador to the United States.

Sources said the Centre is understood to have decided to give him an extension for up to one year.

Sen's extended tenure ends on March 31 and sources said the government is apparently not keen on replacing him at this moment considering the fact that the Indo-US nuclear deal is at a crucial stage.

The 64-year-old diplomat has been in the US since August 2004.

Though the government had earlier decided not to give an extension to Sen, it is understood there was a rethink and the move asking him to continue is being seen in the context of deepening Indo-US relations in which he played a crucial role as also in the unfinished business of the nuke deal.

The government feels that his continuance would be helpful in a successful conclusion of the agreement.

Sen was in the eye of the storm for his alleged remarks terming Parliamentarians as "headless chicken" which led to his censure by the Privileges Committee of both Houses of Parliament after the ambassador was summoned.

The government is also contemplating to give an extension to Nirupam Sen, India's permanent envoy to the United Nations.

Recently, top law-makers including the Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Senator Joseph Biden had said that time is running out on  the final Congressional action on the civilian nuclear deal in the context of a crowded Congressional calendar in an election year.

Biden had said that the cut-off date would have to be by July if the deal is to be approved by Congress in this session.

The general consensus is that if the civilian nuclear initiative does not clear the 110th Congress it stands little or no chance of being  approved in the next Congress and perhaps in a Democratic White House.