Distinguished Fellows
Swapan Dasgupta
Shri Swapan Dasgupta is a Former Member of Parliament in Rajya Sabha, the Upper House of India’s Parliament. He is one of India’s most widely read political columnists for the past three decades. Having worked in almost all the leading publications in India in senior editorial positions, he has been an independent columnist since 2003. In 2015 he was awarded the Padma Bhushan by the President of India.
A B Mathur
Shri Mathur retired as Secretary in the Prime Minister’s Office in the year 2012. He also served in United Nations as Head of the UN Mission in North Korean (2012-2014). Currently, he is a Member of the National Security Advisory Board.
During the span of almost 49 years, Shri Mathur has been closely involved in national security issues, political analysis and negotiation, conflict resolution, security sector development and strategic communication in bilateral and multilateral settings.
His areas of interest include the study of issues affecting national security in India’s neighbourhood, including Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Maldives etc., with a view to providing inputs for shaping a coherent Indian security strategy towards these countries. His other area of interest has been North East of India, where he worked as an interlocutor for peace talks and succeeded in bringing peace in some regions through political reconciliation and integration of militants/insurgents in the national mainstream.
Shri Mathur belongs to Indian Police Service (1975 batch) and has served in Indian Embassies in Belgium and Pakistan. He has been awarded medals by the President and Prime Minister of India
Prabha Rao
Ms. Prabha Rao is Executive Director, South Asian Institute for Strategic Affairs and Distinguished Scholar at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, New Delhi. She is a former IPS officer from Karnataka cadre (1982 batch) who went on a deputation to cabinet secretariat and served in several locations abroad. She also runs an NGO — Encourage India, for skilling victims of trafficking and left-wing extremism.
Karuna Gopal
Ms. Karuna Gopal, is an Internationally acclaimed Thought Leader, Keynote
Speaker and a
Futurist. She is the Founder President of Foundation for Futuristic Cities, a think tank that has
influenced Urban Transformation in India for two decades.
Her work is at the Intersection of TECHNOLOGY | INNOVATION | FUTURE CITIES. As a Plenary Speaker, she
represented India at the Commonwealth Local Government Conference (CLGC) 2023 Rwanda, AFRICA | BRICS
Innovation Forum 2023 Moscow, RUSSIA and COP21-UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate
Change) Paris, FRANCE.
Ms Gopal contributed to the design of the '100 Smart Cities Mission' of India and has been invited to
speak at the launch of the Mission by the Prime Minister. Her innovation SCULPT YOUR CITY- 2009 (Crowd
Sourced Protocol for Co-Creation) has shaped the Mission guidelines and has been declared a National
Best Practice.
In the past, she served as an Urban Expert for The WORLD BANK, DFID (Department for International
Development, UK), USAID (United States Agency for International Development) & ADB (Asian Development
Bank).
Ms Gopal lectures senior IAS officers at India’s Premier Academy LBSNAA (Lal Bahadur Shastri National
Academy of Administration) Mussoorie, WBI (World Bank Institute) and ASCI (Administrative Staff College
of India).
Ms Gopal has given more than 100 Keynote addresses globally and was invited to address Harvard Asia –
Business Conference 2020 at Harvard University, USA.
She currently heads the Policy Research division for Women in Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). She also
serves on the Board of Engineers India limited, under the Union Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas,
Government of India.
Come Carpentier
Come Carpentier has been, since 2003, the convener of the International Editorial Board of World Affairs - The Journal of International Issues. He has travelled and lectured in more than fifty countries. in universities and institutions of Europe, the Americas and Asia. He has written and co-authored several books and more than 200 articles and essays on subjects related to philosophy of science, geopolitics, international relations and the history of civilisations in more than thirty journals, newspapers and magazines in France, India, Italy, the USA, Russia and Switzerland. He was associated for many years with the World Public Forum Dialogue of Civilisations as a member of the founding association and a regular guest and speaker on that platform. He is a member of the Advisory Sub-Committee of the Paris-Berlin-Moscou Committee and an advisor to the International League of Phoenician , Chananean and Punic Cities (Lebanon). He has been a consultant to various American and European high-tech corporations and was between 1992 and 1999 the Secretary of the Tissot Economic Foundation (Switzerland). He initiated at the India Foundation the international conference on exploring consciousness - The Man-Machine Debate (Non-Duality to Non-Locality) held at NIMHANS, Bangaluru in September 2022. The next edition will be held at the University of Padova in Italy in February 2024.
Swadesh Singh
Dr. Swadesh Singh is an author, columnist, teacher and activist. He holds a PhD degree from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi and PG Diploma in Mass Communications from Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC), New Delhi. During India's Presidency of G20, he looked after the Civil20 forum which is responsible for the civil society sector. He has visited 15 countries to participate in leadership summits, workshops and seminars. Recently he represented India at BRICS Expert School in Russia. He has 4 books to his credits - 'Modian Consensus, The Rediscovery of Bharat', 'Ayodhya Ram Mandir, Bharat's Quest for Ram-Rajya', 'Aatmanribharta: Revisiting the Idea and Practices', and 'Electoral Reforms: Ushering a Just Political Regime'. Dr. Swadesh Singh runs an academic forum named 'Academics For Nation'. He teaches Political Science at Satyawati College, University of Delhi. His core areas of interest are Political Parties, Social Justice, Caste, Dalit, Hindutva and Media.
Sonu Trivedi
Dr. Sonu Trivedi is Associate Professor, Political Science at Zakir Husain Delhi College, University of Delhi and Distinguished Fellow, India Foundation, New Delhi. She was on deputation as Director, Swami Vivekananda Cultural Centre, Embassy of India, Seoul from Sept. 2019–March 2023. Before moving to the diplomatic assignment at Seoul, she was a Fellow at Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi (April 2018–Sept 2019). She was also a Visiting Fellow at Institute of Asia Pacific Studies, CASS, Beijing (2011); Member of Myanmar Core Group at ICWA (2014); Visiting faculty at IIM, Indore (2015–16); Convenor, Southeast Asia Research Group at Department of Political Science, University of Delhi and Founder Director, Centre for Vietnam Studies, New Delhi. She was the recipient of ‘Medal of Friendship’ conferred by the President of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam in 2021 and Award from Embassy of Vietnam, New Delhi for her contributions in promoting relations between India and Vietnam in 2018. She has several publications to her credit, most significant being book titled ‘Transition from Authoritarianism to Democracy: Comparative Study of Indonesia and Myanmar’ and ‘Democratisation in Myanmar: Progress and Prospects’. She has also co-edited a book with Shri Shakti Sinha titled ‘Emerging Horizons in India-Vietnam Relations.’
Rami Desai
An alumnus of King’s College, London she has degrees in Anthropology of Religion and Theology. She has been actively involved in research, fieldwork and analysis of conflict areas, with a special focus on the North East region of India for over a decade.