Dr. Gaurav Saini is the co-founder and Head of Operations and Strategy at the Council for Strategic and Defense Research. < Back Executive Editor: Dr. Gaurav Saini Dr. Gaurav Saini is co-founder of CSDR and leads product design and partnerships. Dr. Saini holds a PhD in International Politics from the Centre for International Politics, Organization, and Disarmament at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi. His research interests include foreign policy, strategic culture, defense industry, regionalism, and conflict resolution. Currently, he is an Emerging Quad Think Tank Leader, a part of the U.S. State Department’s Leaders Lead on Demand program.

< Back Dr Sharinee L Jagtiani Dr Sharinee Jagtiani is an analyst & researcher of international relations and public policy. She has 10 years’ experience in think-tanks & research institutions across Asia and Europe in cross-functional roles that include foreign policy analysis, policy advice, project management, grant procurement, stakeholder management, communication, and lecturing. She has a doctorate in International Relations at Oxford University and her thesis focused on Indian foreign policy. She is currently based at the German Institute of Global and Area Studies (GIGA) and Oxford working on global affairs and rising powers, with a passion for examining the international relations and foreign policies of the global South. Publications

< Back Dr Helena Varkkey Helena Binti Muhamad Varkkey is a social scientist based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. She is an Associate Professor at the Department of International and Strategic Studies, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Universiti Malaya, and a Visiting Senior Research Fellow, Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore. She holds a PhD in International and Strategic Studies from the University of Sydney, and has authored several books, book chapters and journal articles for publishers including Cambridge University Press, Routledge, and Brill. Her latest book is ‘The Forests for the Palms: Essays on the Politics of Haze and the Environment in Southeast Asia’, published in 2021 by ISEAS, Singapore. She also served as a Consultant for the ‘Final Review of the Roadmap on ASEAN Cooperation towards Transboundary Haze Pollution Control with Means of Implementation’ for ASEAN Secretariat in 2020-2021, and as a Subject Area Expert for environmental politics, for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Malaysia, between 2016 and 2018. Publications Blog By exporting trash, rich countries put their waste out of sight and out of mind: https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/29/opinions/by-exporting-trash-rich-countries-put-their-waste-out-of-sight-and-out-of-mind-varkkey/index.html Three things Jokowi could do better to stop forest fires and haze in Indonesia https://theconversation.com/three-things-jokowi-could-do-better-to-stop-forest-fires-and-haze-in-indonesia-120497

< Back Ms Khyati Singh A PhD Scholar at Center for United States Studies, SIS, JNU. Research Associate at Center for Air Power Studies. Did her masters from SIS, JNU. Published a range of articles concerning Indo-Pacific, AI, Cyber Security. Publications

< Back DR HAPPYMON JACOB EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Happymon Jacob is the founder and director of the Council For Strategic and Defense Research, a new-age think-tank based in New Delhi. Dr Jacob is also an Associate Professor of Diplomacy and Disarmament at the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). Dr Jacob is an accomplished author, having written the books ‘Line on Fire: Ceasefire Violations and India-Pakistan Escalation Dynamics’ (OUP, 2019) and ‘Line of Control: Traveling with the Indian and Pakistani Armies’ (Penguin Viking, 2018). happy@csdronline.com 123-456-7890

< Back Dr Amrita Sen Amrita Sen is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, and a Visiting Faculty at Azim Premji University. She completed her PhD in Environmental Sociology, from the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Kharagpur, for which she had received the award for Excellence in PhD thesis, 2019. She is a member of the International Sociological Association, Indian Sociological Society, and the International Association for the Study of Commons. She has published articles in journals such as the International Journal of Urban Sustainable Development, Economic and Political Weekly, and the Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics. Her upcoming book, to be published by Routledge, is titled, ‘Contested landscapes and regional political ecologies of environmental conflicts in India’. Publications From SMART to Sustainable Cities: Is COVID19 an opportunity?: https://www.orfonline.org/expert-speak/from-smart-to-sustainable-cities-is-covid19-an-opportunity-66363/ Is COVID-19 a Capitalocene Challenge?: https://www.en.envstudies.carsoncenter.uni-muenchen.de/news1/events11/record-enrolment1/index.html Cyclone Bulbul in the Indian Sundarbans: Another Lesson on Deltaic Vulnerability and Resilience:https://india.mongabay.com/2019/12/commentary-cyclone-bulbul-in-the-indian-sundarbans-another-lesson-on-deltaic-vulnerability-and-resilience/

< Back Dr Benjamin Yew Hoong Loh Benjamin Yew Hoong Loh is a senior lecturer at the School of Media and Communication, Taylor’s University. He is a media scholar who employs digital ethnography in studying emergent cultures and the digital public sphere. Having received his doctorate in communications and new media from the National University of Singapore, he focuses on the confluence between technology and society, with a particular focus on minority and marginalised communities. He co-edited a book on the recent Sabah state elections, “Sabah from the Ground: The 2020 Elections and the Politics of Survival” (ISEAS/SIRD 2021). His next book, a co-edited volume with James Chin entitled, “New Media in the Margins: Lived Realities and Experiences from the Malaysian Peripheries” (Palgrave 2023) will be published in early 2023. Publications

< Back Mr Abhijeet Kumar Abhijeet is a PhD researcher at the Queen Mary University of London, and a recipient of the Herchel Smith Fellowship, researching the issues related to the protection of Indigenous Cultural Heritages through intellectual property regime. He has done his B.A., LL.B. degree, with a Gold Medal and dual honours in Political Science and Intellectual Property Rights, from NLU Odisha (India), and his LLM degree, as the batch-topper, from NLU Jodhpur (India), with specialisation in Intellectual Property Rights. He has authored several research papers, book chapters and reviews, along with his first monograph titled ‘A Complete Guide to Valuation of IP Assets (With Discussions on Managing, Auditing and Taxing IPs)’, published by Thomson Reuters. He has professional experience of practising as an Advocate before Courts in India and is presently employed as an In-house Counsel for Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited, a ‘Maharatna’ Undertaking of Govt. of India. Publications

< Back Dr Ying Hooi Khoo Khoo Ying Hooi is the Head of, and Senior Lecturer at, the Department of International and Strategic Studies, University of Malaya. She completed her PhD in Politics and Government examining social movements and democratization with a focus on Malaysia's Bersih movement, from Universiti Putra Malaysia. Her research interests include civil society, social movements, human rights and democratization with a regional focus on Southeast Asia and ASEAN, especially Malaysia and Timor-Leste. Currently, a columnist in a local Chinese newspaper, Sin Chew Jit Poh, she is also the Editor-in-Chief of the Malaysian Journal of International Relations (MJIR), and sits on the Board of Editors for the Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs, Journal of Southeast Asian Human Rights and the Indonesian Law Review. Her most recent book is titled, "The Bersih Movement and Democratization in Malaysia", and published by ISEAS and Lexington Books. Publications Have Human Rights Failed? https://www.sinchew.com.my/?p=3108161 COVID-19 in Southeast Asia: much more than a health crisis https://theconversation.com/covid-19-in-southeast-asia-much-more-than-a-health-crisis-159451 What Will It Take to Admit Timor-Leste Into ASEAN? https://thediplomat.com/2019/08/what-will-it-take-to-admit-timor-leste-into-asean/

< Back Dr Anand V Dr Anand V is currently working as an Assistant Professor (Senior Scale) at the Department of Geopolitics and International Relations, Manipal Academy of Higher Education where he teaches subjects related to the theoretical and technological dimensions of geopolitics, among others, at the Masters level. He is also the Coordinator of the China Study Centre and the North East Studies Centre at the Department. He was briefly associated with the National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bengaluru and the Centre for Air Power Studies, New Delhi, where he conducted research on China’s space programme. He has published a monograph, several book chapters, research articles in peer reviewed journals as well as commentaries in various forums. He has also presented papers at numerous national and international conferences within and outside India. He has more than a decade of learning, teaching and research experience in the fields of geopolitics, international relations, China studies and strategic studies. Prior to that, he was as an engineer in the Defence production industry in the public sector. Publications Pervasive Geopolitics, Elusive Science: The Quest for the Origins of SARS CoV-2 https://www.idsa.in/cbwmagazine/pervasive-geopolitics-elusive-science Revisiting the Discourse on Strategic Culture: An Assessment of the Conceptual Debates https://www.idsa.in/strategicanalysis/44_3/revisiting-the-discourse-on-strategic-culture China’s silk road ambitions in outer space https://www.orfonline.org/expert-speak/chinas-silk-road-ambitions-outer-space/

< Back Ms Parul Bakshi Parul Bakshi holds a PhD from the Japanese Division of the Centre for East Asian Studies, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, India. She has also been a Special Research Student at the Graduate School of Public Policy at The University of Tokyo as a Japan Foundation Japanese Studies Fellow 2021-22. Her research is titled “Japan’s Post-Fukushima Energy Transition Towards Renewable Energy: Lessons from German Energiewende”. She has previously completed her MPhil, top of her class, from the aforementioned institute on the subject titled “Japan’s Path towards Renewable Energy: Scope for Japan-India Cooperation (2001-16)”. Parul has widely published in academic journals such as the Australian Journal of International Affairs, The Pacific Review, Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development, and the Indian Foreign Affairs Journal, among others. She is also a recipient of the Mitsubishi Cooperation International Scholarship in recognition of excellence in the Japanese language. Publications

< Back Dr Moch Faisal Karim I am an Assistant Professor within International Relations Department at Bina Nusantara University. I am currently an editor for Journal of ASEAN Studies, A Q1 Scopus journal focusing ASEAN. My primary research interest lies in the intersection of political economy and International Relations (IR) with an emphasis on the role of emerging powers in global governance with a special focus on human rights, trade, and International Relations in the Asia Pacific. Currently my Scopus H-Index is 6. My research has been published in Foreign Policy Analysis, International Relations, Contemporary Politics, Third World Quarterly, Australian Journal of International Affairs, Pacific Review, Asian Journal of Social Science, European Journal of East Asian Studies, Journal of International Migration and Integration and Journal of ASEAN Studies. I holds PhD from the University of Warwick, Master Degree from University of Nottingham and Bachelor Degree from University of Indonesia. Publications