Chair
Amb. (Retd.) Gautam Bambawale
Former Indian Ambassador to Bhutan and China, and High Commissioner to Pakistan; Distinguished Professor, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Symbiosis International (Deemed University)

About:
Ambassador (Retd) Gautam Bambawale was a member of the Indian Foreign Service from 1984 to 2018. He was India’s Ambassador to Bhutan, Pakistan and China. Bambawale was stationed in Washington DC in 2004-07 during the Indo-US nuclear deal, which transformed ties between the two countries. He has been India’s first Consul General in Guangzhou (China) 2007-09. He was Director of the Indian Cultural Centre, Berlin 1994-98.

Lead Speaker
Prof. C. Raja Mohan
Senior Fellow, Asia Society Policy Institute

About:
Prof. C. Raja Mohan is a Senior Fellow with the Asia Society Policy Institute in New Delhi. Earlier he was the Director of Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore and currently a Visiting Research Professor there. Prof Mohan taught South Asian Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, and at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Professor Mohan is one of India’s leading commentators on India’s foreign policy. He has been associated with a number of think tanks such as the Institute of Defence Studies and Analyses, the Centre for Policy Research and the Observer Research Foundation. He was also the founding director of Carnegie India, New Delhi. He was the Henry Alfred Kissinger Chair in International Affairs at the United States Library of Congress, Washington DC, from 2009 to 2010. He served on India’s National Security Advisory Board. He led the Indian Chapter of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs from 1999 to 2006.

Discussant
Dr. Rudra Chaudhuri
Director, Carnegie India; Senior Lecturer at King’s College

About:
Rudra Chaudhuri is the director of Carnegie India. His research focuses on the diplomatic history of South Asia, contemporary security issues, and the increasingly important role of emerging technologies in diplomacy and statecraft. He works on comparative models of cross-border data flows and how data is treated by national capitals in inter-state and multilateral negotiations.

He is the author of Forged in Crisis: India and the United States Since 1947 (published in the U.K. by Hurst, in 2013, and in the U.S. and South Asia by Oxford University Press and Harper Collins, respectively, in 2014). He is the editor of War and Peace in Contemporary India (published in the U.K. by Routledge). His research has been published in scholarly journals like International History Review, Diplomacy and Statecraft, Journal of Strategic Studies, International Affairs, RUSI Journal, India Review, Defense Studies, along with other academic and policy-focused journals. He is also an occasional commentator on issues of public policy in the media.

Discussant
Rear Admiral (Retd.) Sudarshan Shrikhande
Adjunct Faculty, Naval War College, Goa & Editor-in-chief – Indian Naval Despatch

About:
RADM Shrikhande retired in 2016 after 36 years in the IN. In flag rank, he headed Naval Intelligence & Foreign Cooperation; was Chief of Staff/ SNC; served in HQIDS & Strategic Forces Command among others. He is a post-graduate of the Soviet Naval War College (1988) in Sonar and Weapon Engg; Indian Staff and Naval War Colleges & of the US NWC with the highest distinction (2003). He commanded IN ships Nishank, Kora and Rajput and was XO of INS Delhi. From Dec 2004 to Feb 2008, he was the Defence Adviser at the Indian High Commission in Canberra concurrently accredited to four other South Pacific nations.

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