Pratnashree Basu is an Associate Fellow with the Strategic Studies Programme. She covers the Indo-Pacific region, with a focus on Japan’s role in the region. Her work also covers maritime geopolitics in the Indo-Pacific, with a particular emphasis on the East and South China Seas. Her research explores the geostrategic dimensions of a rules-based maritime order. She is a Japan Foundation Indo-Pacific Partnership Program (JFIPP Research Fellow 2024); a Sasakawa Peace Foundation and German Marshall Fund for the US Young Strategists Forum Fellow (2025); a Fellow of the Daniel K. Inouye Asia Pacific Centre for Security Studies (2021 and 2023); and a US Department of State IVLP Fellow (2017).

With a decade of policy research experience, her research has been published in books, monographs, and peer-reviewed journals. Besides her regular research at ORF, she also contributes to online and print platforms like The Hindu Business Line, The Lowy Interpreter, The Hindu, 9DashLine, The Diplomat, and East Asia Forum, among others.

Created by:

Dr. Gaurav Saini is the Co-founder of the Council for Strategic and Defense Research (CSDR), a leading New Delhi think tank focused on foreign policy, defense, and strategic affairs. At CSDR, he leads on project design and implementation, crafting frameworks that explore India’s foreign policy evolution, assess technological impacts on national security, analyze internal security challenges, and examine India’s relations with East Asia, Europe, and the Indo-Pacific. His expertise extends to designing annual geopolitical assessments, scoping defense industry collaborations, facilitating Track 1.5/2 dialogues, and leading multi-stakeholder research programs.

With a PhD in International Politics from Jawaharlal Nehru University, focusing on India’s strategic culture toward China (1998-2014), Dr. Saini has been an Emerging Quad Think Tank Leader and a European Union exchange fellow.

Dr. Saini has written extensively on global policy debates, addressing themes such as India-Australia defense and security partnerships, Indian foreign policy transitions, the Quad’s strategic resilience, US-India relations amid global shifts, India-Europe defense cooperation, the Global South’s geopolitical rise, India’s counter-terrorism doctrines, India-China dynamics within the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, India’s military manufacturing advancements, Brazil-India defense synergies, and China’s engagements in the Indo-Pacific.

Created by:

Eerishika Pankaj is the Director of the Organisation for Research on China and Asia (ORCA) and is the Convenor of ORCA’s Global Conference on New Sinology (GCNS). She is also an Editorial and Research Assistant to the Series Editor for Routledge Series on Think Asia; a 2020 Young Leader of Pacific Forum’s Young Leaders Program;  a Quad Think Tank Leader of the U.S. State Department’s Leaders Lead on Demand program; a Member of the Indo-Pacific Circle and a Council Member of the WICCI’s India-EU Business
Council. Eerishika is the co-editor of the book ‘The Future of Indian Diplomacy: Exploring Multidisciplinary Lenses’ and of the Special Issues on ‘The Dalai Lama’s Succession: Strategic Realities of the Tibet Question’ as well as ‘Building the Future of EU-India Strategic Partnership’. Primarily a China and East Asia scholar, her research at ORCA focuses on Chinese elite/party politics, the India-China border, water and power politics in the Himalayas and India’s engagements with China in various regions. She is also an Indo-Pacific scholar, with a large published body of work on Quad, maritime security, trade and supply chains. She focuses on East and Southeast Asian maritime security discourse in connection to Chinese policymaking and foreign policy.

Created by:

Shri Harsh Kumar Jain joined the Indian Foreign Service in September 1993.

Over the course of his diplomatic career, he has served at various positions in the Ministry of External Affairs, New Delhi and abroad.

He served as India’s Ambassador to Ukraine from 2022-2024, Slovak Republic from 2017-2018, and Kazakhstan from 2014-2017. Prior to this, he served in different capacities at Indian Missions in Moscow (1995-96), Kyiv (1996-98), St. Petersburg (1999-2002), London (2004-07) and Kathmandu (2007-11).

He also served as a Member of the UN Group of Governmental Experts on the Developments in the Field of Information and Telecommunications in the context of International Security during 2012-13.

At headquarters in Delhi, he served as the Head of the BIMSTEC and SAARC Division (2020-21), Global Estate Management Division (2019-20) and e-Governance, Information Technology and Cyber Diplomacy Division (2011-14). He served as desk officer for Afghanistan during 2002-04.

Shri Harsh Kumar Jain holds a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering and Master’s degree in Industrial Engineering. He is married to Smt. Vandana Jain and they have a son.

He speaks Hindi, English and Russian.

He joined the Embassy of India in Manila on 02 August 2024.

Created by: