60th Annual Asilomar Conference: The Balance of Power in 2020 hosted by the World Affairs Council of Northern California.
Plenary 3: India: Looking East or West? with moderator David Lyon and featuring panelists Rafiq Dossan, Dan Sneider and Andrew Semmel.
India currently enjoys booming economic growth albeit at a slower pace than China. Economic cooperation between India and China continues to grow and Washington certainly takes issue with elements of India's foreign policy. Will India move closer to the East or the West as it continues to evolve from a developing nation into a major world power? How will the balance of power be affected if India attains a highly sought-after seat at the UN Security Council?
Bio
Dr. Rafiq Dossani
Rafiq Dossani is a senior research scholar at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, responsible for developing and directing the South Asia Initiative.
His research interests include South Asian security, and financial, technology, and energy-sector reform in India. He is currently undertaking projects on political reform, business process outsourcing, innovation and entrepreneurship in information technology in India, and security in the Indian subcontinent.
His most recent books are India Arriving, published in 2007 by AMACOM Books/American Management Association, Prospects for Peace in South Asia (co-edited with Henry Rowen), published in 2005 by Stanford University Press, and Telecommunications Reform in India, published in 2002 by Greenwood Press.
Dossani earlier worked for the Robert Fleming Investment Banking group, first as CEO of its India operations and later as head of its San Francisco operations. He has also been the chairman and CEO of a stockbroking firm on the OTCEI exchange in India, the deputy editor of Business India Weekly, and a professor of finance at Pennsylvania State University. He holds a BA in economics from St. Stephen's College, New Delhi, India; an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta, India; and a PhD in finance from Northwestern University.
Dr. David W. Lyon
Dr. David W. Lyon is President and Chief Executive Officer of the Public Policy Institute of California.
Andrew Semmel
Andrew Semmel, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Nonproliferation within the State Department of the United States.
Dan Sneider
Dan Sneider is Foreign Affairs Correspondent for The San Jose Mercury News.
I was especially interested by Dr. Dossani's comments on the vast number of linguistic groups in India. I hadn't realized that there were over 26 commonly spoken languages in the country!