South Asian University
A University established by SAARC Nations
He was Lala Lajpat Rai Chair Professor in Political Science at Panjab University, Chandigarh before joining South Asian University (SAU), New Delhi, as a Professor in International Relations in June 2018. He served as Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences (FSS) from September 2018 to September 2021. He is serving his second term as the Dean, FSS with effect from 1 August 2022.
During the early 1990s, he pursued post-doctoral research on ‘Polar Regions in International Relations’ at the University of Cambridge, England, with a Nehru Centenary British Commonwealth Fellowship. This was followed by the award of Leverhulme Research Grant at the University of Cambridge, where he was employed as a Research Associate to work on the research project, ‘The Future of the Antarctic Treaty System and its Relevance for the Arctic’, at Scott Polar Research Institute, from 1993 to 1995. A major output of his research stint at Cambridge, which also involved lecturing to M.Phil. in Polar Studies, was The Polar Regions: A Political Geography(Chichester: John Wiley, 1996), which remains widely cited.
Currently, he is the President of the Indian Ocean Research Group (IORG), an Observer in the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA) and Chief Editor of its flagship journal, Journal of the Indian Ocean Region (Routledge). He serves/has served on editorial boards of several journals including Geopolitics (Routledge); Political Geography(Elsevier), Cooperation and Conflict (Sage), Journal of Borderland Studies (Routledge), Strategic Analysis(Routledge), The Polar Journal (Routledge, as a Regional Editor) India Quarterly: A Journal of InternationalAffairs (Sage), Indian Foreign Affairs Journal: A Quarterly of the Association of Indian Diplomats (Prints Publication), Journal of Global Faultlines (Pluto) and Journal of Land Ports and Border Economy (Sage).
He has authored two, co-authored three and co-edited eight books under the imprint of Palgrave Macmillan, Springer, Routledge, John Wiley and Sage. Elected as the co-chair of the Research Committee on Political and Cultural Geography (RC 15) of the International Political Science Association (IPSA) for two terms (2006-2009; 2009-2012), he also served on the Steering Committee of the IGU Commission on Political Geography from 2004 to 2012. He has served as a member of the Indian delegation to several Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meetings (ATCMs): 44th ATCM (Berlin, 2022); 43rd ATCM (Paris, 2021); 38th ATCM (Sofia, 2015); 34th ATCM (Buenos Aires); 33rd ATCM (Punta-de-Este); 32nd ATCM (Baltimore); 31st ATCM (Kiev); and 30th ATCM (New Delhi, 2007).
He has visited 51 countries in connection with various academic assignments. He is the recipient of several visiting professorships and fellowships abroad including Curtin University, Australia; University of Wurzburg, Germany under ‘A New Passage to India’ of DAAD; India-China Institute, The New School, USA; The University of Adelaide, Australia; University of Durham, UK; and ISEAS Yusof Ishak Institute, Singapore. He also speaks/has spoken at the National Defense College, New Delhi; Sushma Swaraj Institute of Foreign Service, New Delhi; George C. Marshall European Centre for Security Studies, Germany; National Defense College, Sultanate of Oman, Muscat; and Theresa Military Academy, Wiener Neustadt, Austria. He also speaks/has spoken at the National Defense College, New Delhi; Sushma Swaraj Institute of Foreign Service, New Delhi; George C. Marshall European Centre for Security Studies, Germany; National Defense College, Sultanate of Oman, Muscat; and Theresa Military Academy, Wiener Neustadt, Austria. He was the Lead Author for Chapter 10: (Asia) of the Working Group II Contribution to the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report (2019-2021). Panjab University Alumni Association, on the occasion of the 4th Global Alumni Meet, held on 23 December 2023, bestowed upon him the 'Distinguished Alumnus Award'.
‘‘Securing’ Borders in Anthropocene Geopolitics: Perspectives On and From Border Villages in Punjab’ in Borders and Geopolitics, edited by Amena Mohsin & Niloy Biswas (Springer Nature, in press).
‘Indian Ocean Rim Association: An Experiment in Grand Oceanic Regionalism’ in Handbook of Globalization Projects of Regional Organizations, edited by Jens Herpolsheimer, Ulf Engel and Frank Mattheis, (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, in press).
‘Adaptation Governance’ in Rajib Shaw (ed.) Handbook on Climate Change and Disasters (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2022): 183-198.
‘Anthropocene ‘Education’: Con(texts), Intersections and Contestations’ in Imtiaz Ahmed (ed.) Imagining Post-Covid Education Futures, (Centre for Genocide Studies, University of Dhaka & Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, 2022).
“Maritime Regionalism and ‘Inclusive Development’: Opportunities and Challenges before Bangladesh in Anthropocene’, Journal of International Relations (University of Dhaka), Special Issue on Bangladesh and the World: Achievements and Futures, 15 (1 & 2), 2022: 159-184. (Best Paper Award)
South Asia: Boundaries, Borders and Beyond, New Delhi: Routledge (co-edited with Dhananjay Tripathi), 2021.
‘The Asian factor in ‘Arctic connectivity’: ecology, geopolitics and the social’ in Chih Y. Yoon and Klaus Dodds ‘Observing’ the Arctic: Asia in the Arctic Council and Beyond (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2020) pp. 82-102.
‘Estranged Democracies in the Geopolitics of Shifting Alliances in the Indo-Pacific: Perspectives From and On India’ in Bart Gaens and Ville Sinkkonen (eds.) Great Power Competition and Rising US-China Rivalry, Finnish Insitute of International Affairs (FIIA), September 2020: 115-146.