Mr Shivshankar Menon

Distinguished Visiting Research Fellow

The current India-China rivalry has revealed the fault lines in South Asia. The increasing Chinese interests in the region, be it elections in Sri Lanka or involvement with Nepalese communist parties, has resulted in a complex dynamics between New Delhi and Beijing. How do South Asian countries navigate between China, which has risen to be a great power and India, that is at the heart of the subcontinent? In this backdrop, Professor C Raja Mohan spoke to Ambassador Shivshankar Menon about the geopolitics of South Asia. Ambassador Menon is currently a Professor at the Ashoka University in India, the Chairman of the Advisory Board of the Institute of Chinese Studies in New Delhi, and a Distinguished Fellow at the Brookings Institution, Washington. He served as national security advisor to the Prime Minister of India from January 2010 to May 2014 and as Foreign Secretary of India from October 2006 to August 2009. A career diplomat, he was Ambassador or High Commissioner of India to Israel, Sri Lanka, China, and Pakistan.