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He served in the Indian missions in Brussels, Dakar, Geneva, and Islamabad in different capacities and as Deputy Chief of Mission in Washington. In Delhi, Ambassador Sood established the Disarmament and International Security Affairs Division which he led for nine years till the end of 2000 as Joint Secretary (D&ISA), in the Foreign Ministry. During this period, he was responsible for multilateral disarmament negotiations (CWC, CTBT and the BWC verification protocol etc), bilateral dialogues on CBMs with Pakistan, strategic dialogues with other countries especially after the nuclear tests in 1998, non-proliferation related export controls and India’s role in the ARF.

As India’s first Ambassador – Permanent Representative to the Conference on Disarmament at the United Nations, in Geneva, from 2001 to 2004, he chaired Working Groups on negotiations on landmines and cluster munitions and served on UNSG’s Disarmament Advisory Board (2002-03).

Subsequently, he served as Ambassador to Afghanistan, Nepal, and France. In September 2013, Ambassador Rakesh Sood was appointed Special Envoy of the Prime Minister (SEPM) for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation Issues; he held this position till May 2014.

Since retiring from government, Ambassador Sood has been active in both print and audio-visual media, commenting on foreign policy and international security issues and is frequently invited to speak by think tanks, in India and abroad.

He is currently a Distinguished Fellow at CSDR, a Delhi based think tank.

She served as Lecturer, Senior Lecturer, and Reader|Professor of International Political Economy at the University of Cambridge (2004- 2014), and President and Professor of the German Institute for Global and Area Studies (2014-2024). She is now Distinguished Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation and Honorary Fellow, Darwin College, University of Cambridge.

Read more about her work:

• https://www.narlikar.com/cv/CVAmritaNarlikar.pdf
• https://www.orfonline.org/peopleexpert/amrita-narlikar

X, LinkedIn, Instagram: @AmritaNarlikar

He is also the dissertation advisor at the Naval War College, Goa. He has previously worked at the National Security Council Secretariat, Government of India, New Delhi and Gateway House: Indian Council on Global Relations, Mumbai.

Dr. Patil has a PhD and MPhil in international politics from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He is the author of Securing India in the Cyber Era (Routledge, 2022) and has co-edited The Making of a Global Bharat (Har-Anand, 2024) and Moving Forward EU-India Relations: The Significance of the Security Dialogues (Edizioni Nuova Cultura, 2017).

He was awarded a PhD by the Jawaharlal Nehru University in 1992.

He is a member of the Governing Council of the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, New Delhi, Adjunct Professor, School of Conflict and Security Studies, National Institute of Advanced Study, Bangalore and Visiting Professor, Centre for South Asian Studies, School of International Studies, Jawahar Lal Nehru University.

He is a recipient of the Jadunath Sarkar Gold Medal for 2024 by the Asiatic Society, Calcutta, the Mohammad Habib Memorial Prize for 2017 of the Indian History Congress and is the author of a number of well received history books.

In his younger days (he started as a sports reporter in 1983), Gokhale lived in and reported from India’s north-east between 1983 and 2006, covering insurgencies in the remote areas. He was kidnapped by militants twice, once each in Nagaland and Tripura, lived to tell the tale has moved on from conventional media such as Outlook and NDTV to become an independent media entrepreneur running three niche digital platforms-BharatShakti, StratNewsGlobal and StratNewsGlobal.tech—besides undertaking consultancy and training workshops in communications for military institutions, corporates and individuals.

He has reported the kargil war from the front lines, was in Sri Lanka covering the Eelam war IV, besides travelling to remotest areas of Naxal heartland and Kashmir. In the past 42 years, he has traversed the entire spectrum across print, broadcast and digital space.

A legend in military circles for having taught communication and strategy to generations of Indian military officers, he is an alumnus of the Asia-Pacific Centre for Security Studies in Hawaii. Author of a dozen books on insurgencies and wars, including biographies of RN Kao, the founder of R&AW, Manohar Parrikar and a book on the Modi govt’s security and foreign policies, he is currently busy with writing a book reviewing the Modi govt’s pathbreaking reforms in defence, security and foreign policies since 2014.

Gokhale now writes, lectures and analyses security and strategic matters in Indo-Pacific and travels regularly to US, Europe, Australia, South and South-East Asia to take part in various seminars and conferences.

Gokhale is also a popular visiting faculty at India’s Defence Services Staff College, the three war colleges, India's National Defence College, College of Defence Management and the IB’s intelligence school.

Gokhale founded BharatShakti group, a media-cum-research organisation in 2015

Prior to this, she served as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs (Master’s Programme) at JSIA. She is a recipient of the UAE’s 10-year Golden Residence Visa (Geniuses of Talent) in recognition of her outstanding academic contributions.

Before joining JGU, Dr. Adam held academic positions at Ain Shams University, the German University in Cairo, Badr University, and the Arab Academy for Science, Technology, and Maritime Transport. She is the founder of three influential institutions: the Jindal Centre for the Global South, the Global South Research Foundation (GSRF), and the Africa Dialogue Forum (ADF) - each committed to advancing research, policy, and cross-sector collaboration to address development challenges and opportunities within the Global South.

Her academic credentials include a B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. from Ain Shams University (Egypt), Poitiers University, and the I.A.E. de Paris – Sorbonne University (France). Her research focuses on International Development Economics, Global South Studies, Political Economy of Development, Green Economics, and International Trade. She has an extensive publication record in Scopus-indexed journals and with leading international publishers such as Springer, Routledge, and Palgrave Macmillan.

Dr. Adam is a full member of the Organization for Women in Science for the Developing World (OWSD), an associate member of the African Studies Centre at Leiden, and serves on the International Editorial Committee of the Journal of Liberty and International Affairs. She is also a peer reviewer for numerous leading academic journals and a frequent invited speaker at international conferences and forums.

Through her leadership, research, and institution-building initiatives, Dr. Adam continues to champion equitable, sustainable, and innovative pathways for the advancement of the Global South.

His papers have been published in Global Studies Quarterly, International Affairs, India Review, The Economic and Political Weekly, Studies in Indian Politics, International Studies, South Asian Survey, and Strategic Analysis. He is the co-author (with Rajesh Rajagopalan) of Nuclear South Asia: Keywords and Concepts (Oxon and New Delhi: Routledge, 2014) and of The Sovereign Lives of India and Pakistan (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2021). He is a visiting faculty at the Sushma Swaraj Institute of Foreign Service of the Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India. He has written op-eds for The Hindu, The Indian Express, Scroll.in, 360info and Dawn among others, and is currently a columnist for The Hindustan Times and India’s World.

Mr. Amit completed his BTech in Mechanical Engineering from IIT Bombay and Master’s in Manufacturing from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He worked in the United States for over a decade in the software & consulting industry.

Mr. Amit is the Co-Founder of ReliScore, a company providing online skills assessment solutions for the IT & Software industry. Amit is also active in the tech & startup community in Pune, and is involved in startup mentoring, advising and angel investing. Mr. Amit is a member of the Regulating Council of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute. He is a member of the Board of Governors of the COEP Technological University. He is also involved in different alumni and other outreach initiatives of IIT Bombay and IISER Pune.

Mr. Amit has until recently served as the Chairman of the Software & IT Committee of the MCCIA, and now serves as a member of their Executive Committee. He is also an active Charter Member of the TiE (The Indus Entrepreneur), Pune, and of the Pune International Center.

Based on his specialisation and expertise he has widely contributed to thematic issues relevant for international cooperation and India’s foreign policy under G20, BRICS, IBSA, South Asia, and Global South. He has been involved in numerous research projects and policy assignments of the Government of India, UN agencies, OECD and other international organisations. He has published edited books, research reports, peer reviewed articles and policy briefs.

Dr Saha obtained his PhD in Economics from the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in New Delhi in 2013 and completed his M.Phil. (2010) and Masters in Economics (2007) from JNU. During his doctoral studies, he was a recipient of the WIPO Prize for Young Scholars, DAAD funded fellowship of the Government of Germany and Government of India Travel Award. As senior research staff he has worked at JNU and at the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER).

From 2004 till 2013, Dr. Sekhon was Senior Fellow and Head, US Studies Programme at the Observer Research Foundation, a New Delhi-based public policy think tank. Before that, Dr. Sekhon worked as an Intelligence and Strategic Analyst with the National Security Council Secretariat, Government of India for two years, where she was engaged in data analysis and preparing assessments on strategic issues for policy implementation by the Government of India.

Dr. Sekhon was Associate Professor of History at MCMDAV College for Women, Chandigarh from 1986 till 1998 and was a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the Centre of Contemporary Studies, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library from 1999 to 2001. She has authored three books: Garland Around My Neck: The Story of Puran Singh of Pingalwara, published by UBS Publishers, New Delhi in 2001; Five Decades of Indo-US Relations: Strategic and Intellectual published by UBS Publishers, New Delhi, in 2002; and India and the United States: Breakthroughs, Prospects and Challenges Ahead published by Macmillan India in 2008. More recently, the VIF has published her monographs titled Russia, Europe and the United States: Emerging Power Play and Russia’s Evolving Equations with China and the USA: Implications for India.

She has presented research papers at several national and international conferences and writes frequently for academic journals and newspapers on her area of study. She appears frequently on numerous TV channels on panel discussions pertaining to her areas of specialization.

Dr. Sekhon graduated in History Honours from Lady Shri Ram College, New Delhi and has done her MA, M Phil, and PhD from Punjab University, Chandigarh.