The 2014 Elections and India's New Government, a Panel Discussion

October 11, 2014

Friday, October 17 at 2:00 p.m. in the Joukowsky Forum, Watson Institute
VIDEO ARCHIVE!

Rahul Pandita is a Senior Editor with The Hindu, one of India's leading newspapers. He is a conflict writer, who has reported extensively from war zones, including Iraq and Sri Lanka. His vast experience in reporting on India's Maoist insurgency has resulted in two books: Hello, Bastar: The Untold Story of India's Maoist Movement and The Absent State. He is also the author of the best-selling memoir on Kashmir, Our Moon has Blood Clots. He is the recipient of the International Red Cross Award for conflict reporting. He lives in a Delhi.

Prerna Singh is Mahatma Gandhi Assistant Professor of Political Science and International Studies and faculty fellow at the Watson Institute, and co-convenor of the Brown-Harvard-MIT Joint Seminar in South Asian Politics. She completed her PhD and MA from the Department of Politics at Princeton University, the tripos in social and political studies from Cambridge University, UK, and a BA (Honors) in economics from Delhi University. Prior to joining Brown, she taught in the Department of Government at Harvard University. She has also been a junior fellow at the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies and held a pre-doctoral research fellowship at the Center for Advanced Study for India (CASI) at the University of Pennsylvania. Her book, Collective Identity and the Common Good: Subnationalism and Social Development in India, is forthcoming with Cambridge University Press. Her articles have been published in several journals, including Comparative Political Studies, Comparative Politics, World Development, and Studies in Comparative International Development. Singh is also the co-editor of the Handbook of Indian Politics (Routledge 2013).

Ashutosh Varshney is Sol Goldman Professor of International Studies and the Social Sciences at Brown University, where he also directs the Brown-India Initiative. Previously, he taught at Harvard and the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. His books include Ethnic Conflict and Civic Life: Hindus and Muslims in India; Democracy, Development and the Countryside: Urban-Rural Struggles in India; India in the Era of Economic Reforms; Midnight's Diaspora; Collective Violence in Indonesia; and Battles Half Won: India's Improbable Democracy. His academic articles have appeared in the leading journals of political science and development. His honors include the Guggenheim, Carnegie, Luebbert and Lerner awards. He is a contributing editor for Indian Express, and his guest columns have appeared in many other newspapers, including the Financial Times. He served on the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's Task Force on Millennium Development Goals, and has also served as adviser to the World Bank and United Nations Development Program (UNDP).

Read Professor Varshney's articles in the Indian Express.

Here is a review of Singh's book: Collective Identity and the Common Good: Subnationalism and Social Development in India and more on her research.

Pandita's latest book, Our Moon has Blood Clots: The Exodus of the Kashmiri Pandits

Reception to follow.