Current Visiting Faculty

Mirza Zulfiqur Rahman is a Programme Coordinator and Research Associate at the Heinrich Böll Regional Office, New Delhi and is a Visiting Associate Fellow at the Institute of Chinese Studies, New Delhi. He is responsible for the Programme on Democracy and Pluralities and co-manages the Alternative Development Paradigms/Worldviews with a geographical focus on Northeast India. He also co-manages thematic coordination and research with HBS Dialogue Offices in Washington D.C, Brussels and Hong Kong. He holds a Ph.D in Development Studies from the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Guwahati, Assam. He completed his MPhil in Diplomacy in Disarmament and his Masters in International Relations from the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi; and his Bachelors in Political Science Honours from Hindu College, Delhi University. His areas of interest include research on Northeast India, transboundary water sharing and hydropower dams, roads and connectivity infrastructures, conflict and insurgency, peacebuilding, development politics, migration and cross-border exchanges.

Veda Vaidyanathan is a multi-disciplinary researcher who specializes in Asia - Africa interactions.  As an Associate Fellow at the Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP) in New Delhi, and an Associate at the Harvard University Asia Center, she brings a comparative perspective to her work, often examining Chinese and Indian engagements in the continent. Her expertise lies in managing research projects, curating multi-cultural teams and conducting extensive fieldwork across geographies. Research projects she has designed and led have examined investments in financial services and mining in Zimbabwe, agriculture in Zambia, infrastructure development in Tanzania and Kenya and pharmaceutical manufacturing in Ethiopia.

Her effort has been to work with universities, research institutes and Civil Society Organizations to gather perspectives from the grassroots, produce evidence-based research that bridges the academic research – development practitioner work gap. During her PhD at the University of Mumbai, she was a recipient of the ICS-HYI China-India Studies Fellowship and spent a year at Peking University, China and the Harvard-Yenching Institute. Prior to this, she was also a Doctoral Fellow at the Indian Council of Social Science Research.

Her analysis and Op-Ed's have been published in The Washington Post, The Hindu, The Diplomat, South African Journal of International Affairs and findings presented in various global conferences and podcasts, including as part of the Indian delegation to the 17th Russia-India-China (RIC) academic trilateral in Beijing. She tweets @vedavn.

Shamshad Ahmad Khan, is Visiting Associate Fellow at the Institute of Chinese Studies. He is also an Assistant Professor of International Relations at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, BITS Pilani Dubai Campus, UAE. Recently, he concluded his term as Visiting scholar at Waseda Institute of Advanced Studies, Waseda University. After completing his Ph.D. in International Relations from the School of International Studies, from the Japanese Studies Division in JNU, New Delhi, he researched at Indian and Japanese institutes. He was associated with the Indian Council of World Affairs, Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses and Department of East Asian Studies, University of Delhi. He had been associated with various Japanese think tanks including the Policy Research Institute, Keio Research Institute, Japan Institute of International Affairs, Institute for Developing Economies, Slavic and Eurasian Research Centre, Hokkaido as a visiting researcher. Before assuming his current position at BITS Pilani Dubai campus, he taught as Visiting Assistant Professor at the Department of International Relations, University of Sharjah, UAE. He got Nakasone Yasuhiro award in 2011 from the International Institute of Policy Studies, Tokyo for his research on Japan-India relations. Apart from many journal articles and book chapters, he has also authored a book on India-Japan Relations: “Changing Dynamics of India-Japan Relations: Buddhism to Strategic Partnership”, Pentagon Press, New Delhi.

Jayshree Borah is currently a visiting researcher at the Institute of Chinese Studies, New Delhi. She is also a Non Residential Fellow, Hong Kong Research Centre for Asian Studies, Hong Kong. Her research focuses on Chinese politics and Non-Western Theory of Peace-Building, with a special focus on non-democratic countries and provincial actors. Currently, she is working on a manuscript on Chinese Approach to Peace-building in Fragile Countries in South-East Asia.

She holds a PhD from Shanghai International Studies University. She also has an M.Phil in East Asian Studies, from University of Delhi. She was also a visiting fellow, at Chinese Language Department, Tezpur University. She was also a consultant on projects related to China-South Asia at various organizations including, Asian Century Foundation. 

Barnali Chanda is a Visiting Research Associate at the Institute of Chinese Studies, New Delhi. She completed her PhD in Comparative Literature from Jadavpur University, Kolkata. Barnali’s PhD thesis conducts a comparative thematic study of selected strange and fantastic narratives of Pre-Modern China and India. Currently she is a China Studies Post Doctoral Research Fellow at Ashoka University. Since 2014 she has taught Literature and Chinese Language in the universities like Jadavpur University, Techno India University and Christ University.  Her field of interests includes comparative literature, travelogue studies, Chinese and Indian literary transactions in the classical period, reception of Buddhist ideas in the Chinese and Sanskrit marvelous stories and translation of Chinese classical and vernacular literature into English and Bengali. Barnali was selected as an ‘Emerging Scholar’ by the India China Institute, New School, New York in 2015. She received the MOFA Huayu Enrichment Scholarship (2011-2012) and the HRD Chinese Government Scholarship (2008-2009). She published articles in Journal of Comparative Indian Language & Literature and Asian Studies Journal of Netaji Institute of Asian Studies.

Nishant Dilip Sharma is a visiting researcher at the Institute of Chinese Studies, Delhi. He is enrolled as a doctoral fellow at the Jindal School of International Affairs, O.P. Jindal Global University. His doctoral thesis focuses on the Institution of Paternalism in China. He completed his Masters in International Studies from Christ University, Bangalore. His research interests also include China's domestic governance and the role of China's historical memory in public diplomacy.

Samanvya Hooda is a Research Assistant at the Institute of Chinese Studies (ICS), Delhi. He has completed a B.A (International Relations) from the Symbiosis School for Liberal Arts. As part of his coursework, he has authored a dissertation exploring the factors that led to Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action of 2015, along with a seminar paper about 'Legal Aspects of Digital Surveillance in India'. Prior to working at ICS, he worked for a year with a New Delhi based advocacy consultancy, and also as a Research Intern for the Nuclear Security Programme at the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, New Delhi. His research interests lie in Nuclear Doctrines and Security, South Asian Geopolitics, Border Conflicts, Conventional Deterrence, and Security in South Asia and the Indo-Pacific. 

Adveetya Kachiar is currently working as a Research Assistant at the Institute of Chinese Studies, Delhi. Previously she worked as a Research Assistant at the Institute of Conflict Management. Her work there mainly focused on creating an Armed Conflict Database in the South Asian region. Her area of interests include Indian Foreign Policy, India and the neighborhood, and Role of Technology in shaping the international order.