India Under Modi: One Year In
VIEW EVENT DETAILSOne year after his historic election, has Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India started to deliver on his promises of economic growth and better governance? Has his government lived up to expectations for refreshed domestic and foreign policies, as it grapples with various economic and political challenges? The Asia Society Policy Institute presents a keynote address by India’s new Ambassador to the United States, H.E. Arun Kumar Singh, and a special, high-level discussion moderated by the Honorable Kevin Rudd, President of ASPI, on Modi’s achievements, one year in, and what his policy agenda means for India.
Agenda
8:00 AM — Welcome | ASPI President Kevin Rudd
8:05 AM — Keynote Address | H.E. Arun Kumar Singh
8:30 AM — Panel One: India’s Economy Under Modi | Shekhar Gupta, Rakesh Mohan, and Sandra Peterson
9:40 AM — Panel Two: India’s Foreign Policy Under Modi | Indrani Bagchi, Shivshankar Menon, and Ashley Tellis
10:40 AM — Question and Answer Session
11:00 AM — Conclusion
Keynote Speaker
H.E. Arun Kumar Singh assumed his new assignment as Ambassador of India to United States on April 30, 2015. He previously served as Ambassador of India to France (2013-2015), Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy of India (2008-2013), and Ambassador of India to Israel (2005-2008). He has held a variety of positions since joining the Indian Foreign Service in 1979.
Panelists
The Honorable Kevin Rudd (moderator) served as Australia’s 26th Prime Minister and as Foreign Minister. As Chair of the Independent Commission on Multilateralism, Mr. Rudd is leading a review of the UN system. He is a Distinguished Fellow at Chatham House in London, a Distinguished Statesman with the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, and a Distinguished Fellow at the Paulson Institute in Chicago. He is proficient in Mandarin Chinese, serves as a Visiting Professor at Tsinghua University in Beijing, and co-chairs the China Global Affairs Council of the World Economic Forum.
Indrani Bagchi is senior diplomatic editor with the Times of India, where she reports and analyzes foreign policy issues and writes news stories and features, opinion pieces, the Globespotting blog, and a fortnightly column for the Times of India Crest edition. She has been a Reuters Fellow at Oxford University, and in 2010, she was awarded the Chang Lin-Tien fellowship by the Asia Foundation to study U.S.-China relations at the Brookings Institution in Washington.
Shekhar Gupta is a veteran reporter and the former editor-in-chief of the Indian Express. He writes a widely-read weekly column called National Interest for the newspaper. Mr. Gupta hosts a program called “Walk the Talk” on NDTV 24x7, where he interviews leaders from politics, entertainment, business and other fields. He has previously served as reporter and editor with India Today. He began his journalism career as a cub reporter for the Indian Express in 1977.
Shivshankar Menon is a career Indian diplomat who served as National Security Advisor to the Prime Minister of India from 2010-2014. He is currently serving as the Fisher Family Fellow at the Belfer Center at Harvard University. Previously, he was India’s Foreign Secretary from October 2006 to August 2009 and served as Ambassador and High Commissioner of India to Israel (1995-97), Sri Lanka (1997-2000), China (2000-2003) and Pakistan (2003-2006).
Rakesh Mohan is Executive Director at the International Monetary Fund, representing India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Bhutan. He has held several positions in the Government of India, including that of Chief Economic Advisor from 2001-2002. He also served as Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank of India from 2002 to 2004 and from 2005 to 2009. Until early 2014, he was the Chairman of the National Transport Development Policy Committee in the Government of India, with the rank of a Minister of State.
Sandra (Sandi) Peterson is Group Worldwide Chairman and member of the Executive Committee at Johnson & Johnson. Prior to Johnson & Johnson, Sandi was Chairman and CEO of Bayer CropScience AG in Germany. Before joining Bayer in 2005, she held a number of leadership roles at Medco Health Solutions, Nabisco, Whirlpool Corporation, and McKinsey & Co.
Ashley Tellis is a Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace specializing in international security, defense, and Asian strategic issues. He previously served at the U.S. Department of State, where he was involved in negotiating the U.S.-India civil nuclear agreement. He was also senior adviser to the U.S. ambassador in New Delhi and Senior Director and Special Assistant to the President on the National Security Council.
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