INDIA IN ASIA: DEEPER ENGAGEMENT

March 3-5, 2023, Neemrana Fort-Palace

India in Asia: Deeper Engagement 2023

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Download Agenda

The India in Asia: Deeper Engagement Conference has been initiated by the Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP) to help deepen person-to-person and non-governmental institutional engagements with the Asian region.

This annual conference is aimed at building and deepening intellectual engagement among experts who have government, academic, private sector, or think-tank experience about the Asian region. The first of these conferences was organised from March 3-5, 2023 at the Neemrana Fort-Palace, Rajasthan.

The Conference brought together academics, influencers, and policymakers to discuss and explore the implications of Asia’s growing significance. It served as a platform for knowledge exchange and collaboration, with the aim of strengthening relationships and furthering research in the region.

There were five sessions at the India in Asia: Deeper Engagement Conference, apart from an opening and closing session. The sessions were as follows:

Opening Session: Setting the Stage: Deepening India’s Engagement with Asia
Session I: Impact of Geopolitics on Asia’s Economic Options
Session II: Human Development and Health Policy in Asia
Session III: Trade Integration and Global Value Chains in the Asia Pacific Region
Session IV: The Geopolitical Effects of Economic Changes: Politics in Command
Session V: Climate Change and Sustainability
Closing Session: Making up for Lost Time: Towards an Annual Conference

Details about each session are available in the Conference Agenda and the Conference Compendium.

Featured Speakers

Tharman Shanmugaratnam

Senior Minister

Suman Bery

Vice-Chairperson & NITI Aayog

Danny Quah

Li Ka Shing Professor in Economics

Sihasak Phuangketkeow

Permanent Secretary

Deepali Khanna

Vice President

Shivshankar Menon

Distinguished Fellow at CSEP

Vikram Singh Mehta

Chairman and Distinguished Fellow

Rakesh Mohan

President and Distinguished Fellow

Tharman Shanmugaratnam

Senior Minister

Tharman is Senior Minister in Singapore, having previously served for eight years as Deputy Prime Minister (2011-2018), as Finance Minister (2007-2015) and Education Minister (2003-2008). He is concurrently the Chairman of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), Singapore’s central bank and financial regulator. He co-chairs the Global Commission on the Economics of Water and is on the United Nations’ High-Level Advisory Board on Effective Multilateralism. He co-chaired the G20 High Level Independent Panel on Global Financing for Pandemic Preparedness and Response in 2021. Tharman also led the G20 Eminent Persons Group on Global Financial Governance that submitted its recommendations in 2018. Tharman chairs the board of the Group of Thirty, an independent global council of economic and financial leaders from the public and private sectors and academia. He earlier chaired the International Monetary and Financial Committee (IMFC) for four years; he was its first Asian chair. Tharman has spent his working life in public service, in roles principally related to economic and social policies.

Suman Bery

Vice-Chairperson & NITI Aayog

Suman Bery has recently taken over as Vice-Chairperson, NITI Aayog. He has served as Director-General of the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) in New Delhi and Chief Economist of Shell International, based in Hague. Mr Bery has served as a member of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council; India’s Statistical Commission; and Reserve Bank of India’s Technical Advisory Committee on Monetary Policy. He comments extensively in the media on economic issues, contributing a monthly column for a business newspaper. His professional writings include contributions on the political economy of reform, financial sector and banking reform, and energy trends and policy. Mr Bery holds an undergraduate degree from the University of Oxford and did graduate work in public policy at Princeton University

Danny Quah

Li Ka Shing Professor in Economics

Danny Quah is Li Ka Shing Professor in Economics and Dean at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore (NUS). His research on inequality and income mobility characterises the range of experiences across economies to suggest that a single narrative on inequality is unlikely to be correct or helpful. His work on world order takes an economic approach to international systems, studying the supply and demand of world order: what international system do the world’s superpowers wish to provide; what world order does the global community need. Quah is a Commissioner on the Spence-Stiglitz Commission on Global Economic Transformation and on LSE’s Global Economic Governance Commission. He serves on the Executive Committee, International Economic Association; the Advisory Board, LSE IDEAS; the Eminent Advisory Council of the UNDP Bureau for Asia-Pacific; and the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council for Geopolitics. He is Vice President at the Economic Society of Singapore. He is the author of The Global Economy’s Shifting Centre of Gravity.

Deepali Khanna

Vice President

Deepali Khanna is Vice President, Asia Regional Office, The Rockefeller Foundation. She manages The Rockefeller Foundation’s policy, advocacy, grant-making, and partnerships in Asia. She leads the Foundation’s initiatives to convene and catalyse strategic collaborations that advance development in Asia, as well as harness Asia’s role in enhancing the wellbeing of humanity in the region and around the world. She is currently serving as co-chair of G7 Japan’s Think7 task force on Development and Economic Prosperity. She is also a co-chair of G20 India’s Business20 task force on Financing For Global Economic Recovery. She joined The Rockefeller Foundation in 2015. She most recently served as Director
and managed one of the Foundation’s flagship initiatives in India, Smart Power for Rural Development (SPRD). In this role, she provided leadership and direction across the full range of activities, partners, and resources of the initiative to provide affordable and clean energy access to over a million people in India. Prior to joining The Rockefeller Foundation, she served as Director of Youth Learning with The MasterCard Foundation, an independent, private foundation based in Toronto, Canada. She was responsible for the global grant-making strategy across more than 50 projects within the portfolio, managing a budget of USD 800 million. She has held multiple leadership positions with Plan International, including Country Director for Vietnam and Regional Director for East and Southern Africa, where she led overall strategic planning within the region and managed operations in 12 countries.

Shivshankar Menon

Distinguished Fellow at CSEP

Shivshankar Menon is a Distinguished Fellow at CSEP and a Visiting Professor at Ashoka University. His long career in public service spans diplomacy, national security, atomic energy, disarmament policy, and India’s relations with its neighbours and major global powers. Menon served as National Security Advisor to the Indian Prime Minister from January 2010 to May 2014. He currently serves as chairman of the advisory board of the Institute of Chinese Studies in New Delhi. He was also a Distinguished Fellow with Brookings India. He is the author of Choices: Inside the Making of Indian Foreign Policy published by the Brookings Press and Penguin Random House in 2016. His book, India and Asian Geopolitics; The Past, Present was published in 2021. Menon has previously served as foreign secretary of India from October 2006 to August 2009 and as ambassador and high commissioner of India to Israel (1995-1997), Sri Lanka (1997-2000), China (2000-2003) and Pakistan (2003-2006). From 2008 to 2014, he was also a member of India’s Atomic Energy Commission. A career diplomat, he also served in India’s missions to the International Atomic Energy Agency in Geneva and the United Nations in New York. Menon has been a Richard Wilhelm Fellow at the Center for International Studies at MIT and Fisher Family Fellow at the Belfer Center, Harvard University. In 2010, he was chosen by Foreign Policy magazine as one of the world’s “Top 100 Global Thinkers”. He attended the Scindia School, Gwalior and St. Stephens College of the University of Delhi, where he studied ancient Indian history and Chinese. He speaks Chinese and some German.

Vikram Singh Mehta

Chairman and Distinguished Fellow

Vikram Singh Mehta is Chairman and Distinguished Fellow at CSEP. He was the Executive Chairman of Brookings India and Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution from 2012 to 2020. Prior to that, he was the Chairman of the Shell Group of Companies in India (1994-2012); Chief Executive of Shell Markets and Shell Chemicals, Egypt (1992-1993); and Advisor, Strategic Planning to the state-owned company, Oil India (1984-1988). He started his career by joining the Indian Administrative Service in 1978. He resigned from the service in 1980. Vikram is an independent, non-executive, director of Larsen and Toubro Ltd, Mahindra and Mahindra Ltd, Colgate Palmolive India Ltd, Apollo Tyres, Hindustan Times and Jubilant Foods. He is also on the Board of Thomson Reuters Founders Share Company. Vikram is on the Board of Overseers of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University; the Global Advisory Board of Macro Advisory partners; and the Board of Governors of the Deen Dayal University of Petroleum. He was the recipient of Asia House’s “Businessman of the Year” award for 2010. He also received the Asia Centre for Corporate Governance and Sustainability’s Award for “Best Independent Director” in India for 2016.

Rakesh Mohan

President and Distinguished Fellow

Rakesh Mohan is President and Distinguished Fellow at CSEP. He was most recently Senior Fellow at the Jackson Institute for Global Affairs, Yale University and was also Professor in the Practice of International Economics and Finance at the School of Management at Yale University, 2010-12. He also served as Distinguished Consulting Professor at Stanford University in 2009. Mohan was also a Distinguished Fellow with Brookings India. He has been closely associated with the Indian economic reforms process from the late 1980s. He was Executive Director on the Board of the International Monetary Fund; Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank of India; Secretary, Economic Affairs, and Chief Economic Adviser of the Indian Ministry of Finance; and Economic Adviser in the Ministry of Industry. In October 2021, he was appointed to the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council (EAC-PM).
He has authored three books on urban economics and urban development; two on monetary policy: Monetary Policy in a Globalized Economy: A Practitioner’s View (2009), and Growth with Financial Stability: Central Banking in an Emerging Market. His most recent book (edited) is India Transformed: 25 Years of Economic Reforms. He has a BSc (Eng) from Imperial College of Science and Technology, University of London (1969), a BA from Yale University (1971) and an MA and PhD in Economics from Princeton University.

Delegates

Montek Singh Ahluwalia

Montek Singh Ahluwalia
Montek Singh Ahluwalia, an economist, and civil servant, was former Deputy Chairman of Planning Commission, Government of India. He joined the Government in 1979 as Economic Adviser in the Ministry of Finance, after which he held a series of positions including Special Secretary to the Prime Minister; Commerce Secretary; Secretary in the Department of Economic Affairs; Finance Secretary in the Ministry of Finance; Member of the Planning Commission; and Member of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister. In 2001, he was appointed as the first Director of the newly created Independent Evaluation Office of the International Monetary Fund. He resigned from that position in 2004 to take up the position of Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission which he held from 2004 to 2014.
Mr Ahluwalia has been a key figure in Indian economic policy. He writes on various aspects of development economics and has been published in prominent Indian and international journals and books. He co-authored
Re-distribution with Growth: An Approach to Policy, which, published in 1975, was a path-breaking book on income distribution. In February 2020, he published his book, Backstage: The Story Behind India’s High Growth Years, an insider’s account of policymaking from 1985 to 2014.
For his outstanding contribution to economic policy and public service, he was conferred the prestigious ‘Padma Vibhushan’ in 2011, India’s 2nd highest civilian award for exceptional and distinguished service.
Mr Ahluwalia graduated from Delhi University and holds an MA and an MPhil in Economics from Oxford University. He is an Honorary Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford.
Muhamad Chatib Basri

Muhamad Chatib Basri
Muhamad Chatib Basri is a former Minister of Finance of Indonesia. Previously he was the Chairman of the Indonesian Investment Coordinating Board. He is now the Chairman of the PT Bank Mandiri Tbk. and Chairman of the PT XL-Axiata Tbk. Dr. Basri is a co-Chair of the Financial Intermediary Fund for Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response (FIF PPR), hosted by the World Bank with technical support from the World Health Organization (WHO). He is a member of various international advisory councils including the High-Level Advisory Group on Sustainable and Inclusive Recovery and Growth formed by the World Bank and the IMF in the face of the dual crisis posed by the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change; the World Bank Advisory Council on Gender and Development; Independent High Level Expert Group on Climate Finance for COP27; Group Eminent Personalities of the OECD Development Centre; and the Advisory Board, Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis, the Australian National University. He is also member of the Governing Board of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore. He teaches at the Department of Economics, University of Indonesia and co-founded CReco Research, a Jakarta-based economic consulting firm. Dr. Basri was Ash Centre Senior Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School (2015-2016); Pacific Leadership Fellow at the Centre on Global Transformation, University of California at San Diego (2016); NTUC Professor of International Economic Relation, RSIS, NTU, Singapore (2016); and Thee Kian Wie Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Australian National University (2016-2017). His expertise is International Trade, Macroeconomics and Political Economy. He is the author of a number of papers published in international journals and actively writes for various leading newspaper and magazines in Indonesia.
Jaimini Bhagwati

Jaimini Bhagwati
Jaimini Bhagwati is a 1976-batch Indian Foreign Service officer and is also a financial sector specialist. He was appointed as India’s High Commissioner to the United Kingdom in 2011. Immediately prior to this appointment, Bhagwati was India’s ambassador to the European Union, Belgium and Luxembourg. He was Joint Secretary (Capital Markets and Pension Reforms) in the Ministry of Finance from 1999-2002. He worked for eleven years in the World Bank Treasury in Washington DC and his responsibilities included issuance of IBRD bonds and pricing of associated derivatives transactions.
Bhagwati did his Master’s in Physics from St. Stephen’s college in Delhi and holds a Master’s in Finance from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a PhD from Tufts University. In 2019, he authored The Promise of India: How Prime Ministers Nehru to Modi Shaped the Nation (1947–2019). This book offers a fascinating analysis on the decision making of prime ministers since independence and the consequent economic and foreign policy fallout. Bhagwati has been writing a monthly column in the Business Standard newspaper since 2005.
He was the Reserve Bank of India Chair Professor at the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER) from 2014 till end-2018. He is currently a Board member of Infrastructure Development Finance Company (IDFC) Limited and Chairman of Trustee IDFC Asset Management Company.
Laveesh Bhandari

Laveesh Bhandari
Laveesh Bhandari is a Senior Fellow at the Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP) and Chief Economist at Indicus Foundation. He leads the climate change capability at CSEP and also plays an advisory role on the broad macro agenda, sub-national reform and human capital. Laveesh has published widely on subjects related to sustainable livelihoods, industrial, economic and social reforms in India, economic geography and financial inclusion. He received his PhD in economics from Boston University for which he was awarded the Best thesis in International Economics. He has taught economics at Boston University and IIT Delhi. He has been the managing editor of Journal of Emerging Market Finance and worked at National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER), New Delhi. Apart from applied economics research, Laveesh has built, seeded, and exited from three companies in the research, analytics and digital domains. Currently he is conducting research on issues of inclusion, India’s energy transition, and how it will impact the government as well as the economy.
Kirida Bhaopichitr

Kirida Bhaopichitr
Kirida Bhaopichitr joined the Thailand Development Research Institute (TDRI), a leading independent think tank in Thailand, in 2015. She is currently the Director of TDRI Economic Intelligence Service (EIS) which is TDRI’s corporate membership program. Dr. Kirida leads the preparation of content for the monthly seminars for corporate members on issues that are of high relevance and interest for business. Her specialisation spans monitoring and analysing developments of the global and Thai economies which includes the macroeconomic environment, geopolitical developments, megatrends, demographic changes, and technological development issues. Dr. Kirida is also currently an independent director on the Government Housing Bank’s board of directors and on the Khon Kaen University Council.
Prior to this, Dr. Kirida was a Senior Economist and the Country Economist for Thailand of the World Bank Group where she worked from 1999 to 2015. Dr. Kirida’s work on Thailand included monitoring and assessing Thailand’s economic developments, investment climate, competitiveness, impact of the 2011 floods in Thailand, and the reforms in the public sector. Dr. Kirida was the main author of the World Bank’s bi-annual Thailand Economic Monitor (2003-2015), the most downloaded and widely cited World Bank publication on Thailand.
At the World Bank, she regularly contributed to the World Bank’s bi-annual report on economic development, the East Asia and the Pacific Update. In 2010, Dr. Kirida spent a year at the World Bank Headquarters in Washington DC, where she worked on regional issues in East Asia and authored a paper on estimating remittance trends in South Asia.
A recognised fixture in economic and business circles in Thailand, she appears regularly in the media and speaks at public and private high-level forums and executive courses in Thailand and overseas. She also gave a TED talk at a large TEDx event in Thailand in 2018.
Dr. Kirida holds a PhD in Economics from Cornell University (USA).
Rajesh Chadha

Rajesh Chadha
Rajesh Chadha is a Senior Fellow at the Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP). He was formerly a Professor & Research Director at the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) and before that, an Associate Professor of Economics at Hindu College, University of Delhi. He has worked extensively on regional and multilateral issues of international trade. His other areas of interest include foreign direct investment, agricultural markets, and non-fuel minerals and mining in India. He has provided research support to the Indian government on multiple projects. He has also played a key role in the research projects sponsored by the governments of India, Australia, the UK, and various international organisations.
He was the Managing Editor of Margin: The Journal of Applied Economic Research, NCAER’s international, peer-reviewed journal, from 2012 to 2019. He has been a Visiting Scholar at the Universities of Michigan, Melbourne, and Monash and Visiting Faculty at many prestigious academic and research institutes in India. He was nominated as GTAP Research Fellow (2004-2007) by the Global Trade Analysis Project, Purdue University, USA.
He received his PhD in Economics from the Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi.
Kuik Cheng-Chwee

Kuik Cheng-Chwee
Kuik Cheng-Chwee is Professor in International Relations and Head of the Centre for Asian Studies, Institute of Malaysian and International Studies, National University of Malaysia (UKM). He is concurrently a non-resident Fellow at Johns Hopkins Foreign Policy Institute (FPI). Previously, he was a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Princeton-Harvard “China and the World” (CWP) Program and a Visiting Research Fellow at Oxford University.
Professor Kuik’s research focuses on smaller-state foreign and defence policies, Asian security, and international relations. He served as Head of the Writing Team for the Government of Malaysia’s inaugural Defence White Paper.
Professor Kuik’s publications have appeared in peer-reviewed journals and edited books. His essay, The Essence of Hedging, won the Michael Leifer Memorial Prize awarded by the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. He is co-author (with David Lampton and Selina Ho) of Rivers of Iron: Railroads and Chinese Power in Southeast Asia (2020). His current projects include: hedging in international relations, domestic politics and foreign policy choices, and the geopolitics of connectivity cooperation. Cheng-Chwee serves on the editorial boards of Contemporary Southeast Asia, Australian Journal of International Affairs, Asian Perspective, Asian Politics and Policy, International Journal of Asian Studies (Cambridge University Press), and East Asian Policy.
Yose Rizal Damuri

Yose Rizal Damuri
Yose Rizal Damuri is the Executive Director, Center for Strategic and International Studies. His research activities focus on international trade, regional integration and globalisation of value chain. He received his PhD in International Economics from the Graduate Institute of International Studies, Geneva, Switzerland. He is active in many networks of research institutes in East Asia, such as in Asia Pacific Research Network on Trade (ARTNet) and ERIA Research Institute Network (ERIA-RIN) and Think 20, the think tank network of G20 countries. Currently he serves as the Co-Chair of Indonesia National Committee of Pacific Economic Cooperation (INCPEC), while also serving as a Member of the Governing Board of Economic Research Institute of ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA). Yose is also active in various policy forums in Indonesia, including as the Research Coordinator of Indonesia Service Dialogue, a forum dedicated for the development of services sector in Indonesia. He is a co-chair of Indonesia National Committee of Pacific Economic Council (INCPEC) and the founder of the Indonesia Bureau of Economic Research (IBER).
Naushad Forbes

Naushad Forbes
Naushad is co-Chairman of Forbes Marshall, India’s leading process and energy efficiency company. He is Chairman, Ananta Aspen Centre, and Centre for Technology, Innovation and Economic Research (CTIER). Forbes Marshall helps Industry build and sustain highly efficient plants by reducing waste, optimising process and energy efficiency, and complying with regulatory requirements. Forbes Marshall has consistently ranked as a great place to work and aspires to be a multinational with Indian roots. Naushad was an occasional teacher at Stanford University from 1987 to 2004 where he developed courses on Technology in Newly Industrialising Countries. He received his Bachelor’s, Master’s and PhD Degrees from Stanford. Naushad is on the board of several educational institutions and public companies. Naushad has long been an active member of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and was president of CII for 2016–17. He is a founding member of Nayanta University, a full-service university opening in 2024, spearheaded by CII. Naushad’s book, The Struggle and the Promise: Restoring India’s Potential, was published by Harper Collins in 2022.
Indrani Gupta

Indrani Gupta
Indrani Gupta is Professor and Head of the Health Policy Research Unit of the Institute of Economic Growth (IEG), Delhi, India. She received her PhD in Economics from the University of Maryland, USA. She set up a centre for health economics and policy research in her institute, the first of its kind in India.
Professor Gupta’s work experience has been diverse, including teaching and working at academic institutes, the World Bank and the Government of India. Her areas of interest cover a wide range of topics in the area of health economics and policy, and include demand for health and health care, health financing and coverage, poverty and health, costing and cost-effectiveness and economics of diseases.
Poonam Gupta

Poonam Gupta
Poonam Gupta is the Director General of the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER), and a member of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister. She specialises in Macroeconomics, and issues related to the Emerging Market Economies. Before joining NCAER, Dr. Gupta was the Lead Economist for Global Macro and Market Research at the International Finance Corporation and led the policy research work on India at the World Bank. Prior to that, she was the Reserve Bank of India Chair Professor at the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy; Professor at the Delhi School of Economics; and Researcher at the International Monetary Fund. Her research has been published and cited widely in scholarly journals and has also featured in leading international business dailies such as The Economist, Financial Times, and The Wall Street Journal. She is currently a member of various organisations, including the Development Evaluation Advisory Committee, NITI Aayog; Board of the Global Development Network; National Executive Committee, Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry; and Governing Body, National Institute of Public Finance and Policy. Dr. Gupta holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Maryland, USA, and a Master’s in Economics from the Delhi School of Economics.
Jong Ho Hong

Jong Ho Hong
Jong Ho Hong is a Professor of Economics and former Dean of the Graduate School of Environmental Studies at Seoul National University (SNU). His teaching and research are focused on environmental/energy economics and sustainable economy and policy. His involvement within the school extends to serving as the former Director of the Environmental Planning Institute and the Institute for Sustainable Development. Before his career at SNU, he held academic and research positions at Korea Development Institute (KDI) and Hanyang University, after receiving his PhD at Cornell University. He also has broad experiences working as a consultant for international organisations, such as the World Bank and Asian Development Bank, and has previously served as the President of the Asian Association of Environmental and Resource Economics; the Korea Environmental Economics Association; and Korean Association of Public Finance. Currently, he serves as Chairman of the Energy Transition Forum of Korea and policy advisor to the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
Naoko Ishii

Naoko Ishii
Naoko Ishii is a professor and executive vice president at the University of Tokyo, where she is also the inaugural director for the Center for Global Commons, whose mission is to catalyse systems change so that humans can achieve sustainable development within planetary boundaries. She believes academia can and should play an active role in mobilising movements towards shared goals of nurturing stewardship of the global commons. Before joining the university, Dr. Ishii was CEO and chairperson of the Global Environment Facility (GEF) from 2012-2020.
Yoon-Je Cho

Yoon-Je Cho
Yoon-Je Cho is currently a member of the Monetary Policy Board of the Bank of Korea. He served as the Korean Ambassador to the UK (2005-2008) and the Korean Ambassador to the United States (2017-2019). He also served as the Chief Economic Advisor to President (2003-2005) and worked as senior economist at World Bank and IMF (1984-1993) and taught economics at Sogang University.
Emmanuel Jimenez

Emmanuel Jimenez
Emmanuel Jimenez is Director General, Independent Evaluation Department of the Asian Development Bank (ADB). Reporting to ADB’s Board of Directors, his responsibilities include assessing ADB’s development effectiveness, as well providing lessons to inform ADB operations. Prior to joining ADB, Mr. Jimenez worked as an Independent Consultant who provides advice, and conducts research and training on evaluation, economics, development management, education and social protection programs. Prior to this, he was the Executive Director and CEO of 3ie. In this role, he led and conducted impact evaluations and evidence reviews. He provided strategic direction to the organisation as it championed the generation and use of evidence to guide decisions regarding policies and programs that improve lives in low and middle-income countries.
Previously, Mr. Jimenez had worked for 30 years in the World Bank Group (WBG) and held several senior management roles across several departments such as the Independent Evaluation Group (IEG), the South Asia, East Asia, and Pacific Groups, and the Policy Research Department. Mr. Jimenez was a faculty member of the Economics Department of Western University in London, Canada. Throughout his career, he has published extensively, including articles in peer-reviewed professional journals, books and reports on economic development and served as managing editor of several international development journals. Born in the Philippines, Mr. Jimenez is a national of Canada. He holds a Doctorate in Economics from Brown University in the United States, a master’s degree in Economics from University of Toronto in Canada, and a bachelor’s degree in Economics from McGill University in Canada.
Bilahari Kausikan

Bilahari Kausikan
Bilahari Kausikan is currently Chairman of the Middle East Institute, an autonomous institute of the National University of Singapore. He has spent his entire career in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. During his 37 years in the Ministry, he served in a variety of appointments at home and abroad, including as Ambassador to the Russian Federation, Permanent Representative to the UN in New York, and as the Permanent Secretary to the Ministry. Raffles Institution, the University of Singapore and Columbia University in New York all attempted to educate him.
Syed Munir Khasru

Syed Munir Khasru
Professor Syed Munir Khasru is Chairman of the international think tank, The Institute for Policy, Advocacy, and Governance (IPAG) with presence across South Asia (Dhaka & Delhi), Asia-Pacific (Melbourne), Europe (Vienna), Middle East (Dubai) & Africa (Mauritius). An MBA from the Wharton School of Business, University of Pennsylvania, USA, he has extensive experience in international relations as well as SDG, digital transformation, climate change, and energy transition. He is a Global Expert of the World Economic Forum (WEF); member of (i) SDG’s Global Councils by UN, World Bank, and OECD (ii) Energy Leaders’ Forum, ADB. He has written nine policy briefs for G20 Leadership Summits from 2017-2022 and is the only person to be co-Chair of two Task Forces (i) SDG and (ii) Digital Transformation under G20 Indonesian Presidency. He is also co-Chair Task Force on Peace, Security, and Global Governance under G7 Japan Presidency for 2023. He is Senior Advisor-Strategy, Policy, & Global Affairs, Australian Information Security Association (AISA). Professor Khasru regularly writes for leading international media outlets which include the Project Syndicate (Global), World Economic Forum (Global), Straits Times (Singapore), South China Morning Post (Hong Kong), Nikkei Asia (Japan), and the Hindu (India) among others.
Hoe Ee Khor

Hoe Ee Khor
Hoe Ee Khor is the Chief Economist of AMRO responsible for overseeing and developing the work on macroeconomic and financial market surveillance of the ASEAN+3 member economies. He is also a member of the senior management team responsible for setting the strategic direction and management of AMRO. Prior to joining AMRO in 2016, Dr. Khor was a Deputy Director of the Asia and Pacific Department (APD) at the International Monetary Fund (IMF). From 2009-2010, Dr. Khor was Head of Economic Development and Chief Economist at the Abu Dhabi Council for Economic Development (ADCED). Dr. Khor was Assistant Managing Director of MAS from 2001 to 2009 where he was responsible for economic research, monetary policy, macro-financial surveillance, and international relations. Dr. Khor obtained his bachelor’s degree in Economics/Mathematics from the University of Rochester and a PhD in Economics from Princeton University.
Soonman Kwon

Soonman Kwon
Soonman Kwon is Professor and Former Dean of the School of Public Health, Seoul National University (SNU). He is a health economist and policy analyst and has worked over 30 years on UHC, health finance and systems, and health policy. He has held visiting positions at the Harvard School of Public Health, London School of Economics, University of Toronto, University of Tokyo, Peking University, and University of Bremen. He was the Chief of the Health Sector Group in the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in 2016-2017. He is the founding director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Health System and Financing at Seoul National University (SNU). In 2021-2022, he was the president of the Korea Health Industry Development Institute (KHIDI), which is a government agency allocating public R&D funds to the health sector. He received the Excellence in Education award of Seoul National University in 2020. He served as president of the Korean Health Economic Association, the Korean Society of Health Policy and Management, the Korean Association of Schools of Public Health, and the Korean Gerontological Society. He is an associate editor (Asia Region Editor) of Health Policy (Elsevier) and International Journal of Health Economics and Management (Springer) and was the editor of the Korean Journal of Public Health and the Korean Journal of Health Economics.
He holds a PhD from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania (1993) and taught at the University of Southern California School of Public Policy until 1996. He has been a member of the board or advisory committees of Health Systems Global (HSG), WHO Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research, GAVI (Global Alliance for Vaccine and Immunization), WHO Centre for Health and Development (Kobe), etc. He has occasionally been a short-term consultant of WHO, World Bank, and GIZ for health system and financing in Algeria, Armenia, Barbados, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, Egypt, Ethiopia, Fiji, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Maldives, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, Oman, Pakistan, Philippines, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam.
Jong-Wha Lee

Jong-Wha Lee
Jong-Wha Lee is Dean of the College of Political Science and Economics, and Dean of the Graduate School of Policy Studies at Korea University. He is currently the president of the Korea Economic Association. He was previously Chief Economist and Director General of Economics and Research Department at the Asian Development Bank and an economist at the International Monetary Fund. He has taught at Australian National University, Harvard University, Columbia University, and Peking University and served as a consultant to the Inter-American Development Bank, the United Nations Development Programme, and the World Bank. Lee has written and published extensively on topics relating to human capital, growth, financial crises, and economic
integration in leading academic journals such as American Economic Review, Journal of Monetary Economics, Journal of International Economics, Journal of Development Economics, Journal of Economic Growth, and Review of Economics and Statistics.
His most recent books include Crisis and Recovery: Learning from the Asian Experience (World Scientific, 2016), and Education Matters: Global Schooling Gains from the 19th to the 21st Century with Robert J. Barro (Oxford University Press, 2015). He was awarded the Korean National Academy of Sciences Award, Kyung-Ahm Prize, Inchon Award, Cheongram Prize, Maekyung Economist Award, and Dasan Economics Award. Lee obtained his PhD and master’s degree in Economics from Harvard University, and his master’s and bachelor’s degrees in economics from Korea University in Seoul.
Tiza Mafira

Tiza Mafira
Tiza Mafira is Director at Climate Policy Initiative, based in Indonesia, where she leads a team of analysts to deliver robust studies on climate finance effectiveness and innovations for policymakers. With a background in environmental law, Tiza is a public policy expert specialising in climate finance. Tiza joined CPI in 2014 and played a large role in establishing the Indonesia office. She has led work at CPI on fiscal policy, finance effectiveness, and innovative finance. She has been involved in various technical expert and advisory roles for the Indonesian government. Prior to joining CPI, Tiza worked as a corporate attorney in Jakarta specialising in natural resources and forestry law. She has also worked at the Office of the Special Staff of the President during President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s term as a speech writer and climate change policy handler. She holds a Master of Laws from Harvard Law School and a Bachelor of Laws from Universitas Indonesia, with studies focusing on environmental law and climate change.
C. Raja Mohan

C. Raja Mohan
C. Raja Mohan is a Senior Fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute in Delhi and a Visiting Research Professor at the Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore. Professor Mohan is also a columnist for the Indian Express and Foreign Policy. His research interests include India’s foreign policy, Asian geopolitics, and the global governance of advanced technologies. He is currently working on a book about India and the Asian balance of power.
Nachiket Mor

Nachiket Mor
Nachiket Mor is an Economist by training with a focus on Health Systems Design. He is a Visiting Scientist at The Banyan Academy of Leadership in Mental Health and a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Information Technology and Public Policy (CITAPP) at IIIT Bangalore.
V. Anantha Nageswaran
Chief Economic Adviser

V. Anantha Nageswaran
Chief Economic Adviser
Appointed Chief Economic Adviser in January 2022, V. Anantha Nageswaran is a writer, author, teacher and consultant. He has written a weekly Mint column for fifteen years every Tuesdays, since 2007. He has co-authored four books: The Rise of Finance – Causes, Consequences and Cures; Derivatives; Can India Grow?; and The Economics of Derivatives. He has taught at several business schools and institutes of management in India and in Singapore. He was the Dean of the IFMR Graduate School of Business and a distinguished Visiting Professor of Economics at Krea University. He was one of the founders of Aavishkaar Venture Capital Fund and the Takshashila Institution. He has served on the Academic Advisory Board of DAV Schools in Tamil Nadu and the Indian School of Public Policy. He was a part-time member of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister of India from 2019 to 2021. In his corporate career spanning seventeen years from 1994 to 2011, he was a Currency Economist at the Union Bank of Switzerland, Head of Research and Investment Consulting in Credit Suisse Private Banking in Asia, and Head of Asia Research and Global Chief Investment Officer at Bank Julius Baer. He was an independent Director on the Boards of TVS Supply Chain Solutions, Sundaram Fasteners, TVS Sri Chakra Tyres, Delphi TVS and Aparajitha Corporate Services. In 1985, he received a Post-Graduate Diploma in Management from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. He earned his doctoral degree from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst in 1994 for his work on exchange rate behaviour.
Madhav Das Nalapat

Madhav Das Nalapat
Madhav Das Nalapat was appointed India’s first Professor of Geopolitics & UNESCO Peace Chair by Manipal University in 1999, positions he still holds. An Executive Committee Member of the Editors Guild of India, Member of Indian School of Social & Economic Sciences and Associate Member of the National Institute of Advanced Studies and the United Services Institution, Professor Nalapat is also the Editorial Director of ITV Media Network, having previously edited the Mathrubhumi and the Times of India. He writes extensively in national and international publications, and has authored nine books. His latest book, on major power rivalry in the 21st century, will be released by Penguin-Random House shortly.
P.S. Raghavan

P.S. Raghavan
P.S. Raghavan is a former career diplomat, who is now Chairman of the National Security Advisory Board, which advises India’s National Security Council on issues of security and strategic affairs. In a 36-year diplomatic career, he has served in different capacities in USSR, Poland, United Kingdom, Vietnam and South Africa. He was India’s Ambassador to Russia (2014-16), Ireland (2007-11) and the Czech Republic (2004-07). From 2000 to 2004, he served in the Indian Prime Minister’s Office, dealing with Foreign Affairs, Defence, National Security, Space and Atomic Energy. In the Ministry of External Affairs (2011-14), he founded and headed the Development Partnership Administration, which implements India’s projects abroad. He was also Secretary (Economic Relations), steering India’s external economic engagement, and Secretary overseeing Administration and e-governance.
Among his other assignments were as Political Adviser to the Indian Peace-Keeping Force (IPKF) in Sri Lanka (1987-88), Chief Coordinator of the BRICS Summit (2012) and Special Envoy of the Government of India to the Sudan and South Sudan (2012-13). He is a Distinguished Fellow at the Vivekananda International Foundation, New Delhi and Emeritus Resource Faculty at the Rashtriya Raksha University, Gandhinagar. He writes and lectures widely on national security and strategic affairs.
Eisuke Sakakibara

Eisuke Sakakibara
Mr. Eisuke Sakakibara is President of Institute for Indian Economic Studies since 2020. Professor of Aoyama Gakuin University, 2010. Professor of Waseda University, 2006. Professor of Keio University, 1999. Vice Minister of Finance for International Affairs of MOF, 1997. Director-General, International Finance Bureau of MOF, 1995. Visiting Associate Professor of Economics, Harvard University, 1980. Economist, International Monetary Fund (IMF), 1971. Joined the Ministry of Finance (MOF), 1965. BA Economics from University of Tokyo, 1964. PhD Economics from University of Michigan, 1969.
Rohan Samarajiva

Rohan Samarajiva
Rohan Samarajiva is the founding Chair of LIRNEasia, a think tank active across South and Southeast Asia, and was its first CEO. He was Chairman of the ICT Agency, the apex body for information and communication technology within the government of Sri Lanka, in 2018-19, having been one of its founding directors. He was Team Leader at the Ministry for Economic Reforms in 2002-04, responsible for competition and regulatory aspects of reforms across a range of sectors. He served as Director General of the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka at a critical time in restructuring the sector in 1998-99. He was Associate Professor of Communication and Public Policy at the Ohio State University in the US and Visiting Professor of Economics of Infrastructure at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. He frequently writes and speaks on policy matters at the intersection of economics, law and technology.
Shyam Saran

Shyam Saran
Shyam Saran is a former Foreign Secretary (2004-06) and has served as Prime Minister’s Special Envoy for Nuclear Affairs and for Climate Change (2006-10). He was Chairman of the National Security Advisory Board (2013-15) and is currently President of the India International Centre. He is the author of 2 books – How India Sees the World and How China Sees India and the World. He is a regular contributor to major Indian newspapers and journals. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 2011 and decorated with the Spring Gold and Silver Star by the Emperor of Japan for his contribution to promoting India-Japan relations.
Anoop Singh

Anoop Singh
Anoop Singh was Member of the Fifteenth Finance Commission during the period December 2017-October 2020. Among his previous positions, he had a long and illustrious career at the International Monetary Fund (IMF). His appointments at the IMF included being Director of the Asia Pacific Department, Director of the Western Hemisphere Department, and Director of Special Operations in the Office of the Managing Director. He was also Special Adviser to then Governors of the Reserve Bank of India, IG Patel and Dr Manmohan Singh. He has taught at Georgetown University in Washington DC as an Adjunct Professor.
Professor Singh has worked and written on macroeconomic, surveillance, and crisis management issues, including helping design IMF-supported programs in emerging markets, transition, and developing countries in South and South-East Asia, Europe, and Latin America.
Some of Professor Singh’s key publications include The Financial Market Crisis and Risks for Latin America; Macroeconomic Volatility: The Policy Lessons from Latin America; Inclusive Growth, Institutions, and the Underground Economy; Sustaining Latin America’s Resurgence: Some Historical Perspectives; Stabilization and Reform in Latin America: A Macroeconomic Perspective on the Experience Since the 1990s; and Macroeconomic Issues Facing ASEAN Countries, among others.
He holds graduate and postgraduate degrees from the universities of Bombay, Cambridge, and the London School of Economics.
Amarjeet Sinha

Amarjeet Sinha
Amarjeet Sinha is currently posted as Member, Public Enterprises Selection Board (PESB). He was earlier posted as Advisor to the Prime Minister till July 31, 2021. An Indian Administrative Service (IAS) Officer of the Bihar Cadre of the 1983 batch, he retired in December 2019 as Secretary, Department of Rural Development, Government of India. He has 40 years of experience in Government, largely in the rural and social sectors. He has had the unique distinction of having played a major role in designing Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (India’s main programme for universal education), the National Rural Health Mission, and in bringing about governance reforms in programmes for rural areas covering livelihoods, employment, housing, social security, skills, urban development, and road construction. He also successfully coordinated the work of Gram Swaraj Abhiyan in 2018 to reach seven pro-poor public welfare interventions (LPG, electricity, Bank Account, life and accident insurance, LED Bulbs, and Immunisation) to 63,974 large villages with over 50% vulnerable social group population.
At the State level, Amarjeet served in the education and health sectors. He has also had the opportunity to serve in the remote tribal district of Singhbhum in present day Jharkhand and in the Naxalite affected Jehanabad district of Bihar. He has also been training Indian Administrative Service Officer Trainees at the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration, Mussoorie on the social sector for the last 30 years. He has the distinction of having travelled to over 90% of India’s districts to promote human development initiatives. Sinha has published seven books on public policy and many articles in publications such as Lancet, Economic and Political Weekly, Economic Times, The Hindu, The Indian Express, The Times of India, The Business Standard, The Hindustan Times, etc.
His last book An India for Everyone – A Path to Inclusive Development, was published by Harper Collins in 2013. A Hindi translation of the book, Hum Sab ka Bharat, is also available. He is working on his forthcoming book, The Last Mile – Turning Public Policy Upside Down, which he hopes to publish this year. Amarjeet has been associated with Public Policy with Azim Premji University, ISB, ISPP, Kautilya School of Public Policy, etc. He delivered the ICSSR Annual Lecture 2022 on Bridging the Last Mile in Pro-Poor Public Welfare. He is also an Advisor to Sampark Foundation for frugal innovations on scale in education, on Health and Human Development with the Centre for Social and Economic Progress, and with Women’s World Bank on Making Finance Work for Women.
A student of St. Stephen’s College, he topped the Delhi University and is a recipient of the National Talent Scholarship, the Rhodes Scholarship and the Oxford Cambridge Society of India Scholarship. He has also been the President of the St. Stephen’s College Students’ Union Society.
Hasbullah Thabrany

Hasbullah Thabrany
Hasbullah Thabrany has worked in the field of health economics, including health financing, for the last three decades in Indonesia. He was a leader in developing Indonesia’s national health insurance scheme (JKN), which launched in 2014 and now covers 228 million people (85% of the Indonesian population). Dr. Thabrany also served as the senior health financing adviser to Indonesia’s National Social Security Council, the oversight body that is instrumental to implementing and evaluating JKN. He published a book titled Jaminan Kesehatan Nasional (JKN) that details the country’s road to universal health coverage (UHC).
He was the main founder of the two associations instrumental to developing health economics and health financing in Indonesia. The Association of Health Insurance Managers of Indonesia (PAMJAKI) was established in 1998 and the Indonesian Health Economic Association (InaHEA) was established in 2013. He served as the chairman of PAMJAKI from 1998-2010 and the chairman of InaHEA from 2013 until present.
Dr. Thabrany joined ThinkWell as a senior policy advisor in 2018 on the Strategic Purchasing for Primary Healthcare project, supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Currently, he is the Chief of Party for the Indonesia Health Financing Activity (HFA), funded by the USAID. He works closely with the Center for Health Financing and Health Security (PPJK) of the Ministry of Health.
Dr. Thabrany obtained an MPH and PhD in health policy and administration from University of California, Berkeley, and an MD from Universitas Indonesia. At Universitas Indonesia, Dr. Thabrany served as a professor in health economics (2003-2018), Dean of the School of Public Health (2004-2008), and as a Director of the Centre for Health Economics and Policy Studies (2009-2016).
Vo Tri Thanh

Vo Tri Thanh
Vo Tri Thanh is former Vice-president of the Central Institute for Economic Management (CIEM). He is currently Chairman of Vietnam National Committee for Pacific Economic Cooperation (VNCPEC) and a member of the National Financial and Monetary Policy Advisory Council. He is also Director of the Institute for Brand and Competitiveness Strategy (BCSI). He holds a masters degree in Economics and a PhD degree in Economics both from the Australian National University. Dr. Vo Tri Thanh mainly undertakes research and provides consultation on issues related to trade liberalisation, international economic integration and macroeconomic policies. His other areas of interest include institutional reforms, financial systems and economic development.
Vinod Thomas

Vinod Thomas
Vinod Thomas is Distinguished Fellow at Asian Institute of Management, Manila, having completed a 6-year term as Visiting professor at National University of Singapore. Previously, he was Director-General and Senior Vice-President of the Independent Evaluation Group at the World Bank Group (2006-2011), and Director General of Independent Evaluation at the Asian Development Bank (2011-2016).
Vinod held several positions at the World Bank. He was Country Director for Brazil based in Brasilia from 2001 to 2005, during the Presidency of Fernando Henrique Cardoso and Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. He was Vice-President of the newly established World Bank Institute, which followed the previous Economic Development Institute. Having joined the World Bank in 1976, he was Chief Economist for the East Asia and Pacific region, Chief of Trade Policy and Principal Economist for Colombia, and Economist for Bangladesh. He was Director for the World Development Report 1991 on The Challenge of Development.
Vinod has a PhD and MA in Economics from the University of Chicago and a BA from St. Stephen’s college, Delhi. He has authored 17 books, numerous peer-reviewed journal articles, and reports on macroeconomic, social, and environmental issues. His books include Best Practices in Trade Policy Reform, 1990; The Quality of Growth, 2000; From Inside Brazil, 2006; Multilateral Banks and the Development Process, (with Xubei Luo), 2012; Climate Change and Natural Disasters, 2017; Economic Evaluation of Sustainable Development, 2019, with Namrata Chindarkar; and Risk and Resilience in the Era of Climate Change, 2023.
He has taught at Vassar College and the University of Sao Paulo, been on several Boards, including International Evaluation Academy, and has addressed numerous fora in all regions. He has been advisor for evaluation at Global Climate Fund, UN agencies, and at IFAD, Centre for Social and Economic Policy, and contributed to Results for Development and the Emerging Market Forum. His work at the National University of Singapore has concerned risk management, cost benefit analysis, public finance, climate change and sustainable development, including their costly neglect by mainstream economists.
Shujiro Urata

Shujiro Urata
Shujiro Urata is Chairman of the Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI). He is also Professor Emeritus, Waseda University; Senior Research Advisor, Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA); Specially Appointed Fellow at the Japanese Centre for Economic Research (JCER); Visiting Fellow, Asian Development Bank Institute (ADBI); and Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Institute of Developing Economies (IDE-JETRO).
Professor Urata received his BA in Economics from Keio University, MA and PhD in Economics from Stanford University. He is a former Research Associate at the Brookings Institution and an economist at the World Bank. He specialises in international economics and has published several books and articles on international economic issues. His recent books include Achieving Inclusive Growth in the Asia Pacific, co-editor, Australian National University Press, 2020; Enhancing SME Participation in Global Value Chains, editor, Asian Development Bank Institute, 2021; The Effect of Globalisation on Firm and Labour Performance, co-editor, Routledge, 2021; Globalization and Its Economic Consequences: Looking at APEC Economies, co-editor, Routledge, 2021; Sustainable Development Disciplines for Humanity, co-editor, Springer, Singapore, 2022; and Sustainable Development Disciplines for Society, co-editor, Springer, Singapore, 2022.
Sandhya Venkateswaran

Sandhya Venkateswaran
Sandhya Venkateswaran is a Senior Fellow at CSEP and leads the Human Development work at CSEP, with a specific focus on Health Policy. In a career spanning over three decades, she has worked on a wide range of issues in the social sector including health, nutrition, gender, natural resources, urban development and others, and has authored books, multiple articles and other publications on varied social sector issues. Over the last 15 years her focus has been on policy issues, developing and leading the policy and advocacy portfolio in organisations such as the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition and CARE. She has worked with grassroots campaigns and civil society organisations, as well as with government and international organisations. She is currently a member of the Lancet Citizens Commission on Reimagining India’s Health System.
Thang Vo

Thang Vo
Thang Vo is director of Health and Agricultural Policy Research Institute, University of Economics Ho Chi Minh City. He is an expert in the field of health economics and development economics. His research focuses on the economic impacts of programs, shocks on the households’ lives, health status and local development. He has published numerous articles in reputed journals.
Tetsuya Watanabe

Tetsuya Watanabe
Tetsuya Watanabe is Special Advisor to the President, ERIA (Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia), the international organisation established by East Asia Summit Member countries, located in Jakarta, Indonesia. He is also a Visiting Professor at Graduate School of Public Policy, the University of Tokyo.
His expertise covers geopolitics, economic security, global trade policy and supply chains, climate change, energy security, innovation policy, digital transformation and Asia’s regional integration.
Before joining ERIA, he was Special Advisor to the Japanese Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry. Throughout his career in the public service, he was involved in Japan’s major trade policy initiatives and negotiations including the TPP, RCEP, Japan-US Trade Agreement, Japan-UK Comprehensive Economic Partnership and the WTO Reforms as Director General for the Trade Policy at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) and Chief Counsellor of the TPP Headquarters at the Cabinet Secretariat.
He graduated from the University of Tokyo and Columbia Law School.
Dushni Weerakoon

Dushni Weerakoon
Dushni Weerakoon is the Executive Director of the Institute of Policy Studies of Sri Lanka (IPS) and Head of its Macroeconomic Policy Research. Her research and publications cover areas related to macroeconomic policy, regional trade integration, and international economics. She has extensive experience working in policy development committees of the Government of Sri Lanka, working as a consultant to international development organisations, and serving as a director on the boards of corporate and academic entities. She holds a BSc in Economics with First Class Honors from the Queen’s University of Belfast, UK, and an MA and PhD in Economics from the University of Manchester, UK.
Dewi Fortuna Anwar

Dewi Fortuna Anwar
Dewi Fortuna Anwar is a member of the Indonesian Academy of Sciences (AIPI); a Research Professor at the Research Center for Politics, National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN), formerly known as the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI); and Chairman of the Board of Directors of The Habibie Center (THC). From 2010-2017 Dewi served as a Deputy Secretary to the Vice President of the Republic of Indonesia. Dewi was a Distinguished Visiting Professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore from 2017-2018, and a Distinguished Visiting Professor at the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Johns Hopkins University in 2007. She has written widely on Indonesia’s foreign policy, and ASEAN regional political and security issues. Dewi sits and has sat on several national and international advisory boards including the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue (HD) since 2019; the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) from 2010-2020; and the UN Secretary General Advisory Board on Disarmament Matters from 2008-2012. She obtained her PhD from Monash University, Melbourne, while her MA and BA (Hons) were from SOAS, University of London.
Surjit Bhalla

Surjit Bhalla
Surjit S. Bhalla is former Executive Director for India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Bhutan at the IMF (November 2019-October 2022). He has served as part-time member of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Economic Advisory Council; Chairperson for the Ministry of Commerce High Level Advisory Group on Trade; and Economic Adviser to the Fifteenth Finance Commission, Government of India. In addition, he is a regular invitee to the Aspen Institute Program on World Economy, USA, 2002-present. He has also been a Contributing Editor for The Indian Express (2010-2019). He was founder-chairman of Oxus Research & Investments (1997-2016); and was Senior India Analyst for the Observatory Group, NY (April 2015-September 2018). Since 1999, he has been on the governing board of the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER).
Surjit has taught at the Delhi School of Economics and served as executive director of the Policy Group in New Delhi, the country’s first non-government funded think tank. He has worked as a research economist at the RAND Corporation, the Brookings Institution, and at both the research and treasury departments of the World Bank, as well as a consultant to Warburg Pincus. He has also worked on Wall Street in Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs.
He is the author of several academic articles as well as four books on globalisation and its effects on the world economy. He is the author of Imagine There’s No Country (2002), Second Among Equals – The Middle Class Kingdoms of India and China (2007), Devaluing to Prosperity (2012), and The New Wealth of Nations (2017), a book which correctly forecast the changing nature of gender equality via educational attainment. His first book, Between the Wickets: The Who and Why of the Best in Cricket (1987), developed a model for evaluating performance in sports and was published in 1987.
His most recent book Citizen Raj: Indian Elections 1952-2019 analysed Indian elections since 1952 and accurately forecast the Modi victory in 2019. Surjit is also a regular contributor (over 1300 articles) to Indian newspapers, magazines, and television on financial markets, economics, politics and cricket.
He holds a PhD in Economics from Princeton University, a Master’s in Public and International Affairs from Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University, and a BSEE degree from Purdue University.
Takeshi Hashimoto

Takeshi Hashimoto
Takeshi Hashimoto is a Representative Director, President, and Chief Executive Officer of Mitsui O.S.K. Lines, Ltd. (MOL). He is entirely responsible for executing the strategic direction and ongoing operations of MOL. He has been engaged in the LNG business since 1994 and is recognised internationally as a leader in the field of LNG Carriers and Offshore Business. Before assuming his current role in April 2021, he was appointed as Representative Director, Executive Vice President in April 2019 and provided overall strategic assistance to the President and CEO, mainly for all Business Divisions. He was also responsible for the Europe and Africa Area and supervised the Human Resources Division. He served as Senior Managing Executive Officer from April 2016 to March 2019, Managing Executive Officer from June 2012 to April 2016, and Executive Officer from June 2009 to June 2012, in charge of LNG Carriers and Offshore Business. Prior to this, he worked in the LNG Carrier Division for 11 years in the positions of Manager up to General Manager. He joined Mitsui O.S.K. Lines, Ltd. in April 1982 and gained more than 10 years’ working experience in the Finance Division before becoming involved in the LNG Carriers and Offshore Business. He worked in the London Office on two occasions, first in the Finance Division and the second time in the LNG Carrier Division. He graduated from the Faculty of Literature, Kyoto University, in March 1982. He majored in classical literature and the History of China at university.
Ajay Mahal

Ajay Mahal
Ajay Mahal is a Professor of Health Economics and Global Health Systems Research and Deputy Director at the Nossal Institute for Global Health at the University of Melbourne. He has previously served as the Alan and Elizabeth Finkel Chair of Global Health at Monash University, and as an Associate Professor of International Health Economics in the Department of Global Health and Population at the Harvard School of Public Health. Prior to his appointment at Harvard, he was the Principal Economist (Human Development) at the National Council for Applied Economic Research (NCAER) in New Delhi. Professor Mahal’s interests span a range of economically relevant questions pertaining to interface between ageing, chronic noncommunicable conditions, and health systems; health financing and insurance; human resources for health; household and national level impacts of (ill) health; and inequalities in the health sector. His experience on health systems practice has included policy research and advisory projects in Bangladesh, Botswana, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, India, Jamaica, Malaysia, Mongolia, Nigeria, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Sri Lanka, and Ukraine. Most recently, he co-edited a special issue of the journal Health Systems and Reform, on the challenges posed by ageing societies for the health systems of the Asia-Pacific region.
Deepak Mishra

Deepak Mishra
Deepak Mishra is the Director and Chief Executive of the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER). Prior to joining ICRIER, he was the Practice Manager at the World Bank’s Macroeconomics, Trade, and Investment Global Practice, responsible for East Asia and Pacific region. Deepak has held various positions at the World Bank, including the Co-director of the World Development Report 2016 (Digital Dividends), Country Economist for Ethiopia, Pakistan, Sudan and Vietnam. His research work has been published in various academic journals including the Journal of Development Economics, the Journal of International Economics and the Journal of Agriculture Economics.
Deepak has also served as the World Bank’s Country Economist for India, based in New Delhi, and worked closely with the Government of India and with several state governments including Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Gujarat, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Punjab. Prior to joining the World Bank, Deepak worked at Tata Motors, Federal Reserve Board and the University of Maryland. Born in Odisha, Deepak received his MA (Economics) from the Delhi School of Economics and PhD (Economics) from the University of Maryland.
Nitin Pai

Nitin Pai
Nitin Pai is co-founder and director of the Takshashila Institution, an independent centre for research and education in public policy. His current research includes information warfare and the geopolitics of the Indo-Pacific. He teaches international relations, public policy and ethical reasoning at Takshashila’s graduate programmes.
He is the author of Nitopadesha – Moral Tales for Good Citizens (Penguin Random House 2023) and the co-editor of India’s Marathon: Reshaping the Post-Pandemic World Order published in 2020. He is currently a columnist with Mint, Sakal and ThePrint.
He spent more than a decade as a technology policymaker in the Singapore government. Earlier in his career, Pai worked on satellite design, undersea cable projects and RF communications. He was a gold medalist from the National University of Singapore’s LKY School of Public Policy, an undergraduate scholar at Nanyang Technological University (NTU), and an alum of National College, Bangalore.
Jeongmin Seong

Jeongmin Seong
Jeongmin Seong is a Partner at the McKinsey Global Institute, McKinsey & Company’s business and economics research arm. He leads MGI research teams in China, working on global as well as emerging market-focused themes.
Jeongmin’s recent research has focused on globalisation, technology, innovation and economic development. He has co-authored several MGI reports and discussion papers, including Global flows: The ties that bind in an interconnected world; Globalization in transition: The future of global trade and value chains; Future of Asia: Asian flows and networks are defining the next phase of globalization; On the cusp of a new era?; China and the world: Inside a changing economic relationship; Future of Asia: How Asia can boost growth through technological leapfrogging; China’s digital economy: Powering the economy to global competitiveness; The China effect on global innovation; Notes from the AI frontier: Modeling the impact of AI on the world economy; Reskilling China: Turning the world’s largest workforce into lifelong learners; Human capital at work: The value of experience; Future of Asia: Redrawing Asia’s consumer map; and Outperformers: High-growth emerging economies and the companies that propel them.
Prior to joining MGI, Jeongmin worked with companies around the world focusing on consumer facing industries including consumer electronics, retail, and automotive. Jeongmin also led McKinsey’s emerging market growth service line.
Shekhar Shah

Shekhar Shah
Shekhar Shah is Vice-Chairman of the Academic Council at the Indian School of Public Policy and the former Director General of the National Council of Applied Economic Research. Prior to joining NCAER, he was the World Bank’s Regional Economic Adviser for South Asia in a career in which he also served as the Bank’s Deputy Research Administrator, the Sector Manager for Governance and Public Sector Management for Europe and Central Asia, the South Asia Governance Adviser, and the Lead Economist for Bangladesh.
He was a principal author of the 2004 World Development Report, Making Services Work for Poor People. He was earlier the Ford Foundation’s Program Officer for Economics and International Relations for South Asia and before that worked in Washington DC consulting for the US Federal Reserve and other US financial regulators. He received his BA in Economics from St. Stephens College, Delhi University and his MA and PhD in Economics from Columbia University.
Ajay Singh

Ajay Singh
Ajay Singh is a member of the board of Mitsui OSK Lines (MOL) group based in Tokyo. He joined MOL in 2020 and is responsible for the company’s businesses in the Indian subcontinent and Middle East region. Between 2014 and 2020 he was special advisor to the chairman of Japan Petroleum Exploration Co., an international energy company owned mainly by the Government of Japan. Earlier, he worked with Shell over a period of 20 years, based in Delhi, Mumbai, London and the Hague; he was instrumental in creating and managing various oil and gas businesses around the world in partnership with host governments and other energy companies. In 2019, he established his own firm to pursue green hydrogen market development. Ajay Singh is an alumnus of Harvard Business School, Manchester Business School and the Walchand College of Engineering.

Photo Gallery

INDIA IN ASIA: DEEPER ENGAGEMENT

Tharman Shanmugaratnam

Suman Bery

Danny Quah

Sihasak Phuangketkeow

Deepali Khanna

Shivshankar Menon

Vikram Singh Mehta

Rakesh Mohan

Montek Singh Ahluwalia

Muhamad Chatib Basri

Jaimini Bhagwati

Laveesh Bhandari

Kirida Bhaopichitr

Rajesh Chadha

Kuik Cheng-Chwee

Yose Rizal Damuri

Naushad Forbes

Indrani Gupta

Poonam Gupta

Jong Ho Hong

Naoko Ishii

Yoon-Je Cho

Emmanuel Jimenez

Bilahari Kausikan

Syed Munir Khasru

Hoe Ee Khor

Soonman Kwon

Jong-Wha Lee

Tiza Mafira

C. Raja Mohan

Nachiket Mor