Beyond Manmohan Singh : Indian Foreign Policy After the Elections - Part 1 (27 Mar 2014)

Abstract The decade long tenure of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has seen significant advances in India's international engagement and the emergence of a range of challenges to Indian diplomacy. Prof. Mohan will assess the gains made in India's relations with great powers including the United States and China, the nation's rising profile in Asia, the Middle East and Africa, the difficulties the UPA government had to face in promoting regional peace, and the unexpected domestic political constraints on the conduct of external relations. Prof. Mohan will examine the prospects for Indian diplomacy after the elections, by scrutinizing the significant changes in India's world view and reviewing the foreign policy record of some of the leading opposition parties, especially the BJP. About the Speaker Professor C Raja Mohan is a Distinguished Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi and a Contributing Editor on Foreign affairs for The Indian Express. Professor Mohan is also a non-resident senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington DC. Earlier, Professor Mohan was Professor of South Asian Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University New Delhi and at S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He also was the Diplomatic Editor and Washington Correspondent of The Hindu. He has served on India's National Security Advisory Board. Professor Mohan has a master's degree in nuclear physics and a PhD in international relations. He was Senior Research Associate at Institute of Defence Studies and Analyses, New Delhi. He led the Indian Chapter of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs during 1999-2006. Professor Mohan was Henry Alfred Kissinger Chair in Foreign Policy and International Relations at the Library of Congress, Washington DC during 2009-10. His new book 'Samudra Manthan: Sino-Indian Rivalry in the Indo-Pacific" has been published in 2013. His area of interest and expertise are in India's Foreign Policy, Asian Security and Great Power Relations.