Engaging Indian Millennials and Gen-Z on Critical Issues in U.S.-India Relations

Chris Painter (@C_Painter) is President of The Global Forum on Cyber Expertise Foundation and a global leader on cybersecurity and cyber policy, cyber diplomacy and combatting cybercrime. He has been on the vanguard of U.S. and international cyber issues for over twenty five years—first as a prosecutor of some of the most high-profile cybercrime cases in the country and then as a senior official at the Department of Justice, FBI, the National Security Council and the State Department.
In his most recent role as America’s top cyber diplomat, Painter pioneered the Office of the Coordinator for Cyber Issues — the first high-level position and office dedicated to advancing the diplomatic aspects of cyber issues ranging from national security to human rights matters. He was instrumental in negotiating a landmark agreement regarding the theft of intellectual property with China, negotiating a comprehensive cyber cooperation agreement with India, and leading cyber dialogues and capacity building programs with dozens of countries in Europe, Asia, the Americas, the Middle East and Africa. He spearheaded the promotion of an international framework of cyber stability that includes building a consensus around norms of acceptable behavior and getting agreement on transparency and confidence-building measures designed to reduce the risk of miscalculation that could inadvertently lead to conflict in cyberspace.

Prior to joining the State Department, Painter served in the White House as Senior Director for Cyber Policy and was a top member of the team that conducted the President’s Cyberspace Policy Review in 2009. He went on to set up a new directorate in the National Security Council to tackle cyber issues.

Painter is the recipient of numerous honors, including the Bartels World Affairs Fellow from Cornell University, the prestigious RSA Award for Excellence in the Field of Public Policy and the Attorney General’s Award for Exceptional Service. He is a graduate of Stanford Law School.

Latha Reddy (@lathareddy51) is Co-Chair of the Global Commission on the Stability of Cyberspace and the former Deputy National Security Adviser of India where she was responsible for cybersecurity and other critical internal and external security issues. She also served as a Commissioner on the Global Commission on Internet Governance.
Reddy has extensive experience in foreign policy, and in bilateral, regional and multilateral negotiations. In addition, she has expertise on security and strategic issues and has worked on strategic technology policies, particularly on cyber issues relating to cyber security policy, international cyber cooperation and Internet governance.

She had a distinguished career in the Indian Foreign Service, serving in Lisbon, Washington D.C., Kathmandu, Brasilia, Durban, Vienna and Bangkok. She served as Ambassador of India to Portugal (2004-2006) and to Thailand (2007-2009). She was Secretary (East) in the Ministry of External Affairs in Delhi (2010-2011) with overall charge of India’s bilateral and regional relations with Asia. She was then appointed as India’s Deputy National Security Advisor in the Prime Minister’s Office from 2011-2013.
Reddy is involved with several organizations and think-tanks, both globally and in India. She is currently, among other positions, serving as a Distinguished Fellow in the EastWest Institute in the US and the Observer Research Foundation in India and Member of the International Advisory Board, Kaspersky Labs, Moscow.

Jay Gullish leads the U.S.-India Business Council’s Digital Economy Committee, Media and Entertainment Committee and Privacy Working Group. Gullish has promoted digital development in more than 20 countries over his 25 years of experience in government, industry, and civil society across the telecoms, information technology, satcom, and cyber sectors.

Most recently, Gullish served as a digital policy officer at the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi covering cyber policy, telecommunications, information technology, digital inclusion, and commercial space. While at the Embassy, he aligned U.S. cyber policy toward India across multiple in-country USG agencies and consulates on behalf of the State Department’s Coordinator for Cyber Issues (S/CCI).
Gullish was also the in-country lead for the U.S.-India ICT Working Group and the U.S.-India Cyber Consultations. He previously worked in India’s outsourcing industry and lived and worked in India for over five years. He has international technology experience in southern Africa, Israel, and Vietnam.

Joyojeet Pal (@joyopal) is Associate Professor at the School of Information, University of Michigan. Prior to his current position, he was a Senior Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research. He teaches User Experience and Client-based design and project implementation to students of Human Computer Interaction.

Pal has worked on user experience and accessibility in low- and middle-income countries. He is also interested in the role of social media and the app ecology on labor, especially in India. His research has looked at the use of social media in political communication in India, specifically on the role of political branding online in India. He is one of the technical collaborators on the Unfinished Sentences project examining oral histories of the El Salvador civil war and leads the Colombia Digital Culture project at the University of Michigan.

He researched and produced the award-winning documentary, “For the Love of a Man” based on the fan following of South Indian film star Rajnikanth. He has published widely on digital access, e-literacy, media discourse and politics and social media.

Pal has been a visiting scholar at numerous institutions around the world including University of Tokyo; Center for Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at Stanford University; and ATLAS Institute, University of Colorado at Boulder. He received his PhD in City and Regional Planning at the University of California at Berkeley.

Dr. Fr. Joseph C. C. (@ChristBangalore) is Pro-Vice Chancellor and Professor, Department of International Studies and History, CHRIST (Deemed to be University). He is also Director of Student Affairs, at the University. A noted expert on maritime history, Fr. Jose is a member of both the Indian History Congress and South Indian History Congress. He has authored or co-authored four books and numerous peer-reviewed articles on wide-ranging issues and presented papers at both national and international conferences. He recently edited a book, Revisiting a Treasure Trove: Perspectives on the Collection at St Kuriakose Elias Chavara Archives and Research Centre. One of his latest publications is “Organization Culture and Work Values of Global Firms: Merging Eastern and Western Perspectives.”

His areas of interest are Maritime Studies, Organizational Culture and Work Values.

Apart from history, Dr. Fr. Jose is well versed in theology and philosophy. He is a passionate teacher and an able administrator.

He holds a PhD in History from Pondicherry University, India.

Deepa M. Ollapally (@DeepaOllapally) is Research Professor of International Affairs and the Associate Director of the Sigur Center for Asian Studies at the Elliott School of International Affairs, The George Washington University. She directs the Rising Powers Initiative which tracks foreign policy debates in major powers of Asia and Eurasia.

She is a specialist on Indian foreign policy, India-China relations, Indo-Pacific regional and maritime security, and comparative foreign policy outlooks of rising powers and the rise of nationalism in foreign policy. Ollapally is the author of five books including Worldviews of Aspiring Powers (Oxford, 2012). Her current research focuses on maritime and regional security in the Indo-Pacific and is writing a book on Big Power Competition for Influence in the Indo-Pacific. She has won grants from Carnegie Corporation, MacArthur Foundation, Smith Richardson Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation and Asia Foundation for work related to India and Asia.

Ollapally has held senior positions in the policy world including US Institute of Peace, and National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore, India. She holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from Columbia University.

N. Manoharan (@ChristBangalore) is Director, Centre for East Asian Studies, CHRIST (Deemed to be University), Bengaluru. He earlier served at the National Security Council Secretariat (NSCS), Prime Minister’s Office, and Ministry of Defence, New Delhi. He was South Asia Visiting Fellow at the East-West Center Washington and is a recipient of Mahbub-ul Haq international award for research.

His areas of interest include internal security, terrorism, Sri Lanka, Maldives, human rights, ethnic conflicts, multiculturalism, security sector reforms and conflict resolution.

His main books include: Developing Democracies, Counter-terror Laws and Security: Lessons from India and Sri Lanka; ‘Security Deficit’: A Comprehensive Internal Security Strategy for India; India’s War on Terror; SAARC: Towards Greater Connectivity; Ethnic Violence and Human Rights in Sri Lanka. Manoharan’s forthcoming book is on Federal Aspects of Foreign Policy: The Role of Tamil Nadu Fishermen Issue in India-Sri Lanka Relations. He writes regularly for leading newspapers, websites and reputed peer-reviewed international journals.

Manoharan has a PhD from the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University.

Madhumati Deshpande (@ChristBangalore) is the Department Coordinator and Assistant Professor in the Department of International Studies, Political Science and History, CHRIST (Deemed to be University), Bangalore.

Her areas of research interest include international relations and foreign policy analysis, Indian foreign policy, US foreign policy and political theory. Deshpande has previously been a graduate assistant and election observer in the Jimmy Carter Center in Atlanta, Georgia and observed elections in East Timor and Guyana. She also held the position of editor for Springer Reference works. She has published several articles in various peer reviewed journals and three book chapters.

She completed her Masters in Political Science from Karnataka University, Dharwad and holds a PhD from the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.