About the Event
As part of our third and final discussion titled ‘Reconnecting the subcontinent’, we aim to dwell deeper into connectivity issues within the region, analysing it from a conceptual and diplomatic practitioner’s perspective. We also aim to look at the softer linkages in the neighborhood, particularly people-to-people ties, and the role that media can play in advancing regional cooperation.
About our Panel
Yamini Aiyar is the President and Chief Executive of CPR. In 2008, she founded the Accountability Initiative at CPR. Under her leadership, the Accountability Initiative has produced significant research in the areas of governance, state capacity and social policy. She is also a TED fellow and a founding member of the International Experts Panel of the Open Government Partnership. She has been a member of the World Economic Forum’s global council on good governance. Previously, she has worked with the World Bank’s Water and Sanitation Program and Rural Development unit in Delhi, and was also a member of the decentralisation team at the World Bank that provided policy support to strengthen Panchayati Raj (local governance) in India.
Meenakshi Gopinath is Founder and Director of WISCOMP (Women in Security, Conflict Management and Peace), an initiative that seeks to promote the leadership of South Asian women in the areas of peace, security and regional cooperation. She is also mentor of Lady Shri Ram College, New Delhi. She was the first woman to serve as member of the National Security Advisory Board (NSAB) of India. Prof. Gopinath is a member of multi-track peace initiatives in Kashmir and between India and Pakistan. Her interests include issues of human rights and gender, conflict transformation and Buddhist and Gandhian philosophy.
Nimmi Kurian is Professor at the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi and Faculty Advisor, India China Institute, The New School, New York. She was Fellow (2008-2010) and India Academic Representative (2010-2015), India China Institute, The New School, New York. Her research interests include Asian borderlands, comparative regionalism and sub regionalism, Indian foreign policy, constituent diplomacy and trans boundary water governance. She is one of the contributors to the India Country Report as part of the Bangladesh China India Myanmar Economic Corridor (BCIM EC) Joint Study Group, Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India. She is also part of the Asian Borderlands Research Initiative, a network of scholars interested in the reconfiguration of theoretical and methodological approaches to the study of borderlands.
Pabasara Kannangara is a Research Associate at the Lakshman Kadirgamar Institute of International Relations and Strategic Studies (LKI), a foreign policy think tank under the purview of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Sri Lanka. Pabasara is also the Program Manager for The Better Tomorrow Movement, a social start-up aimed at developing youth capacity and encouraging civic engagement in Sri Lanka. Her research interests include international trade, maritime affairs, and international political economy. It also includes specific regional and national connectivity projects such as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the Sagarmala Initiative, where she looks at the implications of these projects for Sri Lanka.
Nayanima Basu is the Foreign Affairs Editor for ThePrint. She has been a journalist for over 14 years and have covered several aspects of India’s foreign policy and issues related to strategic affairs. She was probably the first woman journalist in the country to have given the beat ‘Economic Diplomacy’ to cover in 2008 for Business Standard, a publication she worked for almost seven years. Nayanima has worked for various other publications, reporting and writing on policy issues across all the key ministries ranging from the Ministry of External Affairs, Ministry of Defense, Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Commerce and Industry among others. She has also contributed articles for several international news portals and journals. Prior to joining ThePrint, Nayanima was working with the U.S.-India Business Council at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on public policy and policy advocacy. She is presently working on her book which deals with strategic issues that are played out behind the official curtains.
Please RSVP at president.cpr@cprindia.org.
