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Puja Mehra is a Delhi-based journalist and author of The Lost Decade (2008-18): How Indias Growth Story Devolved Into Growth Without A Story

Pulkit Mohan is the Head of Forums at the Observer Research Foundation, where she leads the ideation, curation, and execution of the institution’s flagship conferences and high-level dialogues. In this capacity, she is responsible for shaping platforms that bring together global leaders, policymakers, academics, and practitioners to deliberate on pressing regional and international challenges. Her role spans the conceptual design of these initiatives as well as the strategic alignment of ORF’s convenings with evolving geopolitical, economic, and technological developments. Pulkit holds an MSc in International Relations Theory from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), and a BA (Hons) in Political Science from Kamala Nehru College, University of Delhi.

Colonel Puneet Sharma, is a serving Indian Army Officer. He was commissioned into the Army (The Grenadiers Regiment) in year 2000. He has vast experience in Counter Insurgency Operations, High Altitude including Glacial Warfare and operations in Plains including Deserts.

The Colonel is an alumnus of Aligarh Muslim University, National Defence Academy, Pune and Indian Military Academy, Dehradun. He has held important assignments to include Instructor in Indian Military Academy, Dehradun and Defence Services Staff College, Wellington. He held the prestigious appointments of Colonel general Staff of The Division based in Bikaner, Deputy Commandant of a Regimental Centre, where he was intricately involved in training of the first batch of Agniveers and was on deputation with the United Nations in Sudan (UNMIS). He has been awarded the Force Commander’s Commendation Card for his outstanding contributions in HR Management while deployed with United Nations and Chief of the Army Staff Commendation Card for his exceptional work in Counter Insurgency Operations in J&K. His area of specialization is security and military matters and is a keen student of China and the Indo Pacific.

Purnendra Jain is Emeritus Professor in the Department of Asian Studies at the University of Adelaide. Recipient of the Japanese Emperors Order of the Rising Sun Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon in 2020 and elected Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities in 2021 his research focus has been on contemporary Japanese politics and foreign policy. Author co-author and editor of 14 books and numerous research papers and articles he has also researched and written extensively on international relations in the Asia-Pacific/Indo-Pacific region. His latest co-edited book isJapans Foreign Policy in the Twenty-first Century(2020). He is a frequent commentator on Asian current affairs in newspapers online platforms radio and television in Australia Japan India Singapore and China. He is former President of the Japanese Studies Association of Australia (2003-2005) and President of the Asian Studies Association of Australia (2010-2012).

Purushottam M. Kulkarni is a demographer based in Bengaluru. He obtained his PhD in Statistics from the Colorado State University, and completed a post-doctoral Fellowship at the Population Studies Centre of Brown University. He then worked in various research and educational institutions in Bengaluru and Coimbatore, before joining the Jawaharlal Nehru University as Professor of Population Studies at the Centre for the Study of Regional Development, School of Social Sciences, from where he retired in 2015. His areas of research are technical demography, fertility, reproductive and child health, and population policies and programmes. He is co- author of the recent book, Population and Reproductive Health in India: An Assessment of the Current Situation and Future Needs. He has served on the Technical Advisory Committees for the Office of Registrar General of India, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, and the Ministry of Women and Child Development, and has been a consultant to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). He also previously served as the Secretary General of the Asian Population Association, and is a member of the editorial advisory committees of various academic journals.

Purva Jain has over eight years of experience in policy advocacy and research in the development sector. Her areas of policy interest include renewable energy climate change energy subsidies electric vehicles and sustainable development. She has previously engaged as a policy consultant with - G20 Sherpa team in the International Economic Relations Division at the Indian Ministry of Finance and the Global Subsidies Initiative of the International Institute of Sustainable Development (IISD). Currently she is working as an independent consultant with focus on renewable energy and climate change.

Purvaja Modak Non-Resident Senior Research Fellow Global Economic Governance Initiative Boston University Global Development Policy Center

Pushpam Kumar is Chief Environmental Economist and Senior Economic Advisor United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). He leads work on Response to COVID19 Pollution and Human Capital Nature Based Solutions Inclusive Wealth Sustainable Development Goals and Nature- Human Development Nexus. He holds the Position of Research Scientist at the Earth Institute of Columbia University in New York and is an Extra Ordinary Professor University of Pretoria. He is one of the Global Experts of the Masters Academy of DeTao Group Shanghai. His Op-ed appears on State of the Planet (Earth Institute NY) and the World Economic Forum (Davos) amongst others.

P V Ramana was Research Fellow at IDSA. A student of South Asian studies, he works on the Naxalite-Maoist movement in India. 

With over four decades at the forefront of public service and international corporate strategic advisory, Mr. Shamim is a distinguished expert in fiscal policy, trade relations and corporate governance. His career spans leadership roles in the state sector in India, where he has shaped national export competitiveness at the Ministry of Textiles with notable representation at the WTO, deepened bilateral ties as Chairman, HCoI at the Ministry of External Affairs, advised on fiscal policy, and driven strategic governance as an Independent Board Director of NALCO. In the private sector, Mr. Shamim has been a trusted senior advisor to leading multinational corporations.

Mr. Shamim’s research expertise focuses on the execution of fiscal policy. His cross-sectoral experience — grounded in academic teaching at the University of Lucknow (India), along with research at the University of Bath (England) and Hitotsubashi University (Japan), and advanced course work at the Harvard Kennedy School (USA) — enables him to inform real-world fiscal policy design, international trade relation dynamics and institutional economics.

Bhavani worked as an officer at the State Bank of India for a decade before shifting out in 2000 to join M. S. Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF), a not-for-profit trust for sustainable rural development. An MPhil from IIT Bombay and a doctorate in economics from Madras University, the focus areas of her work are food and nutrition security, leveraging agriculture for nutrition, and food systems transformation. She was on deputation with the National Commission on Farmers, Government of India as Officer on Special Duty from 2004-06. Since 2021, Bhavani has been engaging in consultancy assignments related to food systems with the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the UN, in Bangladesh. She served as a member of the Board of Seva Mandir from 2018 to 2022 and is currently a Senior Advisor (Food and Nutrition) with the Coalition for Food and Nutrition Security.

Rabia Ali is a senior economist with the World Bank's East Asia and Pacific Poverty and Equity team based in Jakarta Indonesia. Currently she is working on the 2022 Indonesia Poverty Assessment and coordinates activities of the Indonesia COVID-19 Observatory.

Racha Seif El-Dine is Senior Economist, Egyptian Center for Economic Studies (ECES). She has previously worked as Senior Economist in the Technical Office of the Minister of Trade and Industry.

Radhika Radhakrishnan is a feminist activist working as a researcher at the Internet Democracy Project on the Bodies and Data Governance Project. She previously worked with the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) as a Programme Officer researching feminist approaches to Artificial Intelligence with the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) of United Nations-DESA as a Consultant on Gender and Access and with the Womens Rights Programme of the Association for Progressive Communications (APC).

Rahil Miya Shaikh is Lead, Graphics and Design, at ORF’s Mumbai centre. He is responsible for designing special reports, infographics, social media creatives, collaterals and branding for events, and podcasts across ORF.

Prior to joining ORF, Rahil worked as a Design Head for International Finance Magazine (IFM). A UK based premium Business and Finance magazine.

With over Twenty-Two years of experience in the digital and print media, through stints at startups and media conglomerates. Prior to joining ORF, Rahil lent his design skills to companies like Condé Nast India (Condé Nast Traveller, GQ) and Dalberg (India) and institutions like the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Observer Research Foundation (ORF), PUKAR and Axis Bank Foundation.

Rahil has augmented his design skills through a course in Usability Analysis from Human Factors International (HFI) and through programmes on Creativity, Design Strategy & Opportunity Mapping from the National Institute of Design (NID) and Continuing Education & Quality Improvement Programmes (CEP) conducted by IIT Bombay.

Rahool Gadkari is the Co- Founder of Neufin.

Rahul Batra is an independent consultant with extensive experience at the intersection of digital platforms and international affairs. He spent many years across Google’s global operations at the start of his career, and then participated in Myanmar’s historic, most recent decade of political and socio-economic liberalisation, where he co-founded and ran an AI/ML (search-tech) venture at the forefront of the country’s budding information ecosystem. Since Covid-19, Rahul has been assessing the role of critical and emerging technologies across geopolitical fault lines.

Rahul Manohar Yelwe is presently doctoral candidate at Department of Security studies, School of National Security Studies, Central University of Gujarat. He is a recipient of UGC’s NET-JRF fellowship for his doctoral research. His area of research is primarily focuses on defence economics, defence industry, modernization, procurement, technology and exports. He has published research papers in peer-review journals and op-ed articles in various reputed websites on issues related to his area of interest.

Rahul has been associated with India EXIM Bank since 2007. He has been working on issues related to international economics public policy and sustainability: and has also worked on a number of publications in concomitant areas. Besides this he has been involved in consultancy assignments abroad and in India with various Governments and financial institutions.Since long he has been a frequent contributor to opinion-editorial pages in several of India's leading financial dailies on topics of contemporary interest.Rahul holds two Masters degrees in Economics and in Management from Banaras Hindu University (BHU) Varanasi.

Dr. Rahul Mishra is a Senior Research Fellow, the German-Southeast Asian Centre of Excellence for Public Policy and Good Governance, Thammasat University, Thailand and Associate Professor, Centre for Indo-Pacific Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.

Rahul Rawat is a Research Assistant with ORF’s Strategic Studies Programme (SSP). He also coordinates the SSP activities.

His work focuses on strategic issues in the Indo-Pacific region with a focus on military strategy and modernisation, domains of warfare, and the intersection of technology and warfare. His secondary research interests include nuclear deterrence, arms control and strategic trade controls.

Rahul was previously a Research Associate at the School of Defence and Strategic Studies at Rashtriya Raksha University, Gujarat. In addition, he has worked on various projects, including Geostrategic Developments in Ladakh post-Article 370 Abrogation (funded by ICSSR) and India’s Export Control Mechanism: Effectiveness and Challenges (funded by CRDF Global). He was also part of the IGCC Public Policy and Nuclear Threats (PPNT) Boot Camp  2023 cohort at the University of California, San Diego.

Rahul is pursuing PhD degree and holds a Masters degree in International Relations from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He has co-edited a book, Fifty Years of the 1971 War: Accounts from the Veterans (Vij Publications, 2022). His writings have appeared in newspapers and academic journals.

Rahul is founder of The PerspectiveTM &: Grade AceTM. With more than a decade experience working in Technology Public Policy Cyber Security and the Privacy space he engages with a range of stakeholders locally and globally to address the challenges in the evolving cyber ecosystem and to value add as a Trusted Advisor. He recently worked as Cyber Security Liaison Partner in International Business Hague Security Delta Netherlands in India and as Country Leader India for International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP).Rahul also worked as Senior non key Expert on 'International Digital Cooperation-Enhanced Data Protection and Data Flows' project with Directorate General for Justice and Consumers (DG JUST) European Commission. Heis a member of the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) National Task Force on Cyber Security &: Privacy. In his past role Rahul has worked with Data Security Council of India (DSCI) part of NASSCOM for over 6 years where he anchored DSCIs Policy Privacy Standards and International relations functions. He led initiatives such as NASSCOM-DSCI Cyber Security Task Force represented the industry in engagements with ministries and bilateral discussions authored DSCI Privacy Assessment Framework and co-created DSCI privacy training and certification program. Through BIS he represents India in ISO SC27 Security Working Groups for Standards development. Previously he worked as a senior security analyst with HCL Technologies and as a telecom engineer with Nokia Siemens Network. He holds and Engineering degree in Electronics and Communication from Indraprastha University in New Delhi.

Rahul Verma is a Fellow at the Centre for Policy Research (CPR) and visiting assistant professor of political science at Ashoka University. His research interests include voting behavior party politics political violence and media. His publications include the co-authored book Ideology and Identity: The Changing Party Systems of India

Rahul Wankhede is a Research Analyst at the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA), New Delhi. His research areas are defence cooperation, defence modernisation and defence economics.

Dr Raj Kumar Sharma is a Visiting Fellow at United Service Institution of India New Delhi. Prior to it he was Maharishi Kanad Post-Doc Fellow at Delhi School of Transnational Affairs Institution of Eminence University ofDelhi. He has been also associated with Indira Gandhi National Open University New Delhi Rashtriya Raksha University Ahmedabad and Press Trust of India New Delhi. His latest publication is 'India and Russia in International Organizations: Motives Strategies and Outcomes' in MGIMO Review of International Relations Moscow Russia.

Raj Shekhar is the Lead Responsible AI at NASSCOM, driving NASSCOM's efforts at defining a roadmap for an extensive roll-out and adoption of responsible AI in India. The views expressed above are those of the author and do not represent the views of Nasscom or its members.

Rajan is a technologist with 30+ years’ experience cutting across industry sectors and hi-tech domains. He is a Distinguished Fellow and a Member Trustee at Observer Research Foundation. An engineer by profession with an executive MBA in national security and counter-terrorism, he is passionate about critical and emerging technologies, innovation, global partnerships, strategic risk management, and public policy.

At Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL), India's #1 private sector company, Rajan has worked across all its’ businesses for 25 years. At Reliance Retail, India’s largest retailer with over 18,000 stores, he was part of the founding team spear-heading business strategy, technology architecture, business processes and loss prevention. As the head of special projects in the Chairman’s Office at RIL, he currently leads a digital platform team and setting up world’s first enterprise Joint Operations Centre. As an Investment Committee member in Israel’s leading early-stage incubator, he has led RIL investments in 15+ startups in AI, IoT, ed-tech, agri-tech, med-tech, smart city, cyber-security, quantum computing space.

Rajan is among the pioneers of electronic security industry in India and was recently honored with a Lifetime Achievement award. Starting his career with entrepreneurial stints in identity management, packaged software, and system integration ventures, he has been amongst the earliest adopters of advanced technologies including RFID, biometrics, IoT, IP-video, AI, computer vision and drones.

Other honorary positions: