The writer has been the Chief of Staff of the Eastern Army Command and the Vice Chancellor of Maharshi Dayanand University, Rohtak, Haryana.

Lt. Gen. (Retd.) V R Raghavan, PVSM, UYSM, AVSM is President, Centre for Security Analysis (CSA) and Director, Delhi Policy Group (DPG)
After a distinguished career in the Indian Army, where he was decorated on three occasions, Gen. Raghavan retired as Director General of Military Operations. His combat experience included operations in wars with Pakistan and China and in counter-insurgency campaigns.
 
The General has authored books amongst which, the monograph, India’s Need for Strategic Balance; essay on Limited War and Nuclear Escalation in South Asia, the books Infantry in India, and Siachen–Conflict without End are widely known. He has edited more than a dozen books. His articles have been carried in leading newspapers, journals, magazines in India and internationally.  He is a Guest Lecturer at Indian War colleges and the National Defence College. 
He graduated from the Royal Military College of Science and Army Staff College, U.K. in 1968
 His expertise lies in Security and Peace Studies, Nuclear Deterrence and Non-Proliferation, CBMs, Non-Traditional Security, South Asia, Military History & War Studies.
 

Afsir Karim is a well known retired Indian Army General and a military scholar who has authored several books on strategic affairs & military studies. He is a graduate of the Defense Services Staff College, Wellington and the National Defence College.

The writer is Joint Director at Institute of National Security Studies, New Delhi and Senior Research Fellow with Forum for Strategic and Security Studies, New Delhi.

 The writer is Fellow at the Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Institute of Asian Studies (MAKAIAS), Kolkata. She has been working on Central and South Asia, with Afghanistan being the area of her specific interest since 2000. She has contributed articles on peace-building, population movement, gender issues, problems of transitional politics and regional cooperation to several research journals, edited books and encyclopaedia. 

The writer is Consultant with IPCS and Founder Director Net Assessment, Integrated Defence Staff and former Member National Task Force on Net Assessment and Simulation.

 The writer is Professor and Head of Department of Geopolitics and International Relations at Manipal University.

The writer is a physicist and electronics engineer by original training and a social scientist and science policy analyst by subsequent training. Joining the Department of Atomic Energy in 1967 as Special Assistant to the then Chairman, Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), 

Dr. Vikram Sarabhai, he also set up the Programme Analysis Unit, as an inter-disciplinary policy planning and management services unit to the AEC. In mid 1970, he joined the Secretariat of Prime Minister late   

Mrs. Gandhi as Special Assistant for Science and Technology. For the next five years he dealt with a wide range of science and technology policy planning and management matters. These included the setting up of the Department of Science and Technology, the Department of Electronics and the Department of Space, the preparation of the nation's first comprehensive S&T plan under the auspices of the National Committee on Science and Technology and several major projects in the areas of atomic energy space, electronics and defence. He is the only person to have held such a position to date.After retiring from the Government of India in the year 2000, he was invited by the Jawaharlal Nehru University to be a Professor in the Centre for Studies in Science Policy. Over 2002-03, he was a member of the Task Force set up by the Government of India under the Chairmanship of the then Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission K. C. Pant, to draw up a plan for making India "A Knowledge Super Power".

The writer is based in Imphal and is the Chief of Bureau of Manipur with NETV.   He is a senior TV journalist and has reported extensively on conflict and related issues in the North-east.

 The writer is an Israeli citizen, 63, living in the Galilee, Israel. In the mid 70s, he studied History of the Middle-east and Arabic in Haifa University. He is manager and owner of the www.globaljihad.net.

 Major General Dipankar Banerjee has served in all operational theatres and the wars of the Indian Army. Commissioned into the 1st Gorkha Rifles in December 1960 he has been an instructor at the Indian Military Academy, the College of Combat and twice at the Defence Services Staff College (once as Chief Instructor Army). He attended the Staff College at Camberley, UK and the National Defence College, New Delhi. For the last 23 years he has held Director level positions at leading think tanks in India and the region specialising in international security and strategy. 

 The writer is European correspondent of Polish weekly magazine Wprost. She specialises in NATO and European Union affairs and also the Balkans issues. She is correspondent  (Europe) of Defence And Security Alert (DSA) magazine from India.

 The writer is 1965 batch IPS officer of Assam cadre. He has been Suptdt. of Police Khasi Hills Shillong, Deputy Inspector General of Police - Northern Range Tezpur during infamous election of 1983, Inspector General of Police Operations Guwahati during op Bajrang and op Rhino, SP and DIG CBI, IGP CRPF north-east IG BSF Kashmir 1993-95. DG BSF 1997-2000.  Advisor to Governor of Manipur 2001-2002. Member National ecurity Council Advisory Board 2005-2006. 

He is a Director, Centre for Land Warfare Studies (CLAWS), New Delhi.

Brig. Gurmeet Kanwal commanded an infantry brigade in the high-altitude Gurez Sector on the LoC with Pakistan (Operation Parakram, 2001-03) and an artillery regiment in counter-insurgency operations in Kashmir (Operation Rakshak, 1993-94). He has served as Deputy Assistant Chief of Integrated Defence Staff (Doctrine, Organisation and Training Branch) at HQ Integrated Defence Staff, New Delhi; as Director MO-5 in the Directorate General of Military Operations at Army Headquarters (dealing with threat, strategy and force structure); United Nations Military Observer in UNTAG, Namibia; and as an Instructor-in-Gunnery at the School of Artillery, Devlali.

The writer is retired 1958 Batch IPS officer of the Assam-Meghalaya Cadre and an authority on the issue of illegal migration from Bangladesh and North East's demography related dangers.

 The author is Professor, Department of Defence & Strategic Studies, DDU Gorakhpur University, Gorakhpur. 

Harsh V. Pant teaches in King’s College London and is presently a Visiting Professor at IIM-Bangalore.

Jaideep Saikia is a Security and Terrorism Analyst who has penned a number of books and numerous academic papers on security and strategy. He has served as a Security Advisor and worked as an “Expert on North-East” in the National Security Council Secretariat, Government of India.

K. Subrahmanyam served as a Secretary, Defence Production. He also worked as a Convener, National Security Advisory Board, a Chairman, Kargil Review Panel, and a Consulting Editor, Times of India

The writer was Professor of South Asian Studies, JNU and Chairperson, Centre for South, Central, Southeast Asian and   Southwest Pacific Studies.  He has authored two books on Pakistan   and after retirement in 2001 has written numerous research papers and articles in journals on Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh.

The writer is working on Police-Community Engagement in India and Australia for a PhD at Monash Asia Institute, Monash University. He is an active member of the course organizing team of Masters of International Crisis Management, an innovative programme launched by Monash Asia Institute. He was a Fellow of Australia-India Council (AIC), Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) Government of Australia in 2007.  He has an MPhil from School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU, New Delhi) and an MA in Political Science and World Affairs from Ravenshaw (Odisha). During his work as a life skills trainer for the Prism-Hindu Newspaper in Education (NIE) programme and as a lead National Service Scheme (NSS) volunteer at JNU, Mr Dash  received training in theatre, human rights, disaster management, community volunteering and HIV/AIDS Peer Education. His main academic areas of interest include citizen participation in public policy, police in the criminal justice system, social theory, international relations and interfaith dialogue. He likes to read and practice yoga... and is an ardent fan of cricket and Bollywood dance.

The writer is a physicist from the BARC cradle with acknowledged contributions in radiation transport theory, reactor shielding and hazard analysis. He is an alumnus of the International Institute for Nuclear Science and Engineering, Argonne, Illinois. He made path-breaking revelations on the emerging Sino-Pak nuclear and missile nexus.  He was Programme Coordinator of the Pokhran II campaign while, simultaneously, spearheading the effort in DRDO to reduce the size and weight of the 1974 device design. He was also Director General, Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses IDSA, New Delhi. Presently, he is President of the India-Central Asia Foundation.  He has authored / edited more than 12 books. He was honoured with Padma Bhushan award in 1999.  

The writer is former Director, Safety Research Group. Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research. Kalpakkam, Tamil Nadu. A physicist by training, he has served in the DAE for nearly four decades, the first half of which was spent in BARC at Trombay engaged in safety analysis and review of various types of nuclear installations. In the second half of service he was engaged in setting up a Safety Research Laboratory at IGCAR Kalpakkam.  Post-retirement, he has co-authored two books. One of them is a historical chronicle titled 'Atomic Energy in India - Fifty Years'. It was published by the DAE in 1998 and had C. V. Sundaram and T. S. Iyengar as the other contributors. The other book titled 'Elements of Nuclear Power' with R. Ramanna as the co-author was published by Gandhi Science Centre of Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan. He is also the co-author of the report published by CSTEP titled 'Nuclear Power - The Road Ahead'.

Formerly Associate Director, Physics Group, BARC, Mumbai the writer is from the first batch of the BARC training school. He served as a Reactor Physicist and an experimental Nuclear Physicist at BARC, Mumbai for 40 years (1957 to 1997). His specialisation was in the general area of Nuclear Science and Technology, focusing on the "Physics of Fission Chain Reactions and Fusioning Plasmas". At the time of his retirement he was Head, Neutron Physics Division of BARC and also Associate Director of its Physics Group. His main contributions were in the design, construction  and experimentation with the three Purnima series of experimental nuclear reactors at Trombay and played a key role in the 1974 Pokhran nuclear explosion experiment. He was responsible for initiating Fusion Plasma experiments culminating in the building of the huge 500 KJ Capacitor Bank Facility at Purnima laboratories. During the last seven years of his research career at BARC he was deeply involved in the study of the controversial new field of "Cold Fusion". 

 Dr Mondira Dutta is currently an Associate Professor in the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India. Her fields of specialisation include Gender Studies, Human Security & Development with particular reference to India, Afghanistan and Central Asia. Currently she is actively engaged in an evaluation study for the Ministry of External Affairs, Govt of India on ‘the Indian Initiatives for the Afghan Women’. A member of the governing board for several national and international organizations, she has worked as a consultant to several international organizations such as, the British Council, Ford Foundation, NOVIB (The Netherlands), the DFID, The World Bank, International Human Rights Commission, Geneva and UNIFEM. Her recent books include “Emerging Afghanistan in the Third Millennium” and “Capturing Women’s Work”. She has completed an evaluation study in March 2010, on the ‘Anti-trafficking measures of UNIFEM against human trafficking of women and children in South Asia’ as the team leader. 

 The writer is alumnus of Aligarh Muslim University and is currently Associate Professor of Sociology in the Department of Higher Education, Government of Jammu and Kashmir and is posted at the Government Degree College, Ramnagar. The insurgency has caused him immense personal pain after his elder brother was beheaded by militants. He was forced to leave his village and take refuge in Jammu.

Mr. Om is founder and promoter of National Cyber Security of India New Delhi.
 

The writer retired from the Navy as Commander-in-Chief of the Eastern Naval Command. He has been Co-Chair of the Maritime Security Group in the Council of Security Cooperation in Asia Pacific, writes frequently on strategic and security issues and is a regular speaker at War Colleges in India. He has served as member of the National Security Advisory Board.

 The writer is an educationist, activist and journalist. She is currently editor of The Shillong Times, Meghalaya’s oldest English language daily and a columnist for The Telegraph and The Statesman. She is also the Director, Indigenous Women’s Resource Centre, North-East India. For her consistent campaign against corruption and the diminishing returns of militancy and its spin-offs such as extortion and violence through her forthright columns, Mukhim was awarded the Padmashree by the President of India in the year 2000. Earlier, in 1996, she received the Chameli Devi Jain Award for outstanding woman media person from the Media Foundation, New Delhi.

The writer is distinguished police officer of India. Served as Police Chief of Uttar Pradesh and Assam, he commanded BSF and has an excellent track record for combating terrorism in the most turbulent parts of India. He was awarded the Padam Shri in 1991. An expert on internal security, he has given lectures in premier institutions and seminars across the world and has also written several articles and books on 'Nagaland' and 'The Naxalite Movement'.

 The writers are researchers at Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA) and Centre for Russian and Central Asian Studies - Jawaharlal Nehru University respectively.

The writer is Professor in the Department of Defence and Strategic Studies (DDSS) and Dean, Faculty of Science, DDU Gorakhpur University, UP, India. He is author of five books, has edited three and has contributed seventeen chapters in the books edited by distinguished Indian and foreign scholars. He has the privilege of receiving special Fellowship given by the United Nations as participant in the training programme on Arms Control and Disarmament (1996),  administered jointly by the Department of Disarmament Affairs, United Nations, New York and Juniata International Centre, Williamsburg, Penn, USA. 

The writer is an Ex IAF Fighter Pilot. He has been an Instructor at the Defence Services Staff College (DSSC), Wellington for four years and a Research Fellow with the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA) for six years. He presently works as a Defence Analyst and an Aerospace Consultant. 

The writer is Scientist ‘G’, Additional Director and Head, Division of CBRN Defence, Institute of Nuclear Medicine and Allied Sciences, Delhi.

The writer is Virginia-based analyst on South Asian strategic affairs. He contributes regularly to the Washington-based news weekly, Executive Intelligence Review.  He also contributes to  Aakrosh and Agni, the Japanese monthly, Foresight, Vijayvaani.com, Asia Times Online and the Italian strategic journal, Eurasia Rivista di Studi Geopolitici.

Rashmi Sarmah is a journalist who contributes to media organisations in India and US. She writes for 'The Times of India' and has anchored programmes on Doordarshan.  Her expertise includes women guerrillas, terrorist financing and gender related issues in security environment.

Dr. Ravni Thakur is Reader for Chinese Studies at Delhi University and Director of the Euro-Asia Institute, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi.

The writer is a Research Associate at the Centre for Land Warfare Studies (CLAWS), New Delhi. His areas of interest include the strategic, geo-political and sub-conventional warfare fields. He has previously worked with Times Now and reported on various defence related news.

The writer is former Research & Analysis Wing (R&AW) officer and has authored books on strategic and military aspects. He is also an Associate Editor of Indian Defence Review magazine.

The writer was Fighter Pilot, retired from IAF as Air Marshal in 2003. He has flown over 4700 hours on 28 different types of aircraft and commanded No 7 Squadron (The 'Battleaxes').

The writer is Associate Professor, Dept. of Defence and Strategic Studies, Allahabad Central University, Allahabad.

Major General Sheru Thapliyal, SM after his premature retirement from the Army, is now working for a multinational information technology company. He is PhD in Sino-Indian Relations and contributes regularly to magazines, periodicals and newspapers on Strategy, Security and Defence related issues.
 

 The writer  is BBC’s East India Correspondent.   He is a former Queen Elizabeth Fellow of Oxford University (1989-90), during which he completed his first book “Insurgent Crossfire”, a definitive investigation of the proxy wars of the region. He has presented more than 30 papers at national and international seminars on security, ethnicity, migration and low-intensity conflicts and atleast twenty articles of his on Northeast India, Burma, Bangladesh and the Himalayan nations.  His second book “ Troubled Periphery: Crisis of India’s Northeast” has been published in 2009.

The writer, a fighter pilot, was appointed first Commander-in-Chief of the Strategic Forces Command in January 2003 with responsibility for India's nuclear weapons and held this post till retirement in June 2004. He was Assistant Chief of Operations, ACAS (Ops) at Air Headquarters in January 1999  during the Kargil Operations.
 

Commodore (Retd) C Uday Bhaskar is Director, National Maritime Foundation, New Delhi. He headed the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA) and was member-secretary, Government of  india’s Task Force on ‘Global Strategic Developments’. 

The writer is Retd. IPS officer and Ex-DGP. He conducted research for National Police Academy on organised crime, and Impact of Evaluation of I.P.S. Training. He also served as principal of CISF Training College. Before joining IPS, he was with Gorkha Regiment for 5 years.

V. Balachandran is a former Special Secretary of the Cabinet Secretariat. He was also a part of the high level committee appointed by the Maharashtra government to enquire into Mumbai 26/11 terror attacks. He is a prolific writer on intelligence, terrorism and insurgency issues and has also given lectures on these subjects at several institutions in India and abroad.

 The writer is a practicing Advocate in the Supreme Court of India and  the High Court(s). Member of the Expert Committee, appointed by the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, government of India to amend the IT Act, 2000, which is now in the form of IT (Amendment) Act, 2008. Adviser to the central government and various statutory bodies on Information Technology laws and practices.

The writer was the Quartermaster General of the Indian Army before he retired. He is Distinguished Fellow at Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi. During the Kargil war, he was commanding 28 Infantry Division on the Line of Control in J&K. For the role played by him in that war, he was awarded Uttam Yudh Seva Medal. Later he was the Corps Commander of the prestigious 15 Corps engaged in management of the Line of Control and counter terrorist operations in the Kashmir Valley.

The writer is Chairman, Defence Committee, ASSOCHAM and Vice President and Country Head of Boeing Integrated Defense Systems in India.

The writer served in the Army for 35 years, his last appointment being Chief Signal Officer of the Western Army. In November 2000 he joined the Cabinet Secretariat, (R&AW), where he served up to June 2004, when he retired from government service. He has authored five books including India's External Intelligence - Secrets of the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) in 2007.