The Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP) is delighted to invite you to a seminar titled “India-Bangladesh Relations: Past, Present & Future” on Thursday, January 16, 2025 from 11:00 AM-1:00 PM (IST).

The seminar will feature a discussion between Amb. Shyam Saran, Former Foreign Secretary of India, Amb. Shivshankar Menon, Distinguished Fellow, CSEP and Former National Security Adviser, India and Amb. Deb Mukharji, Former High Commissioner to Bangladesh. The seminar will be introduced by Amb. Dr Jaimini Bhagwati, Distinguished Fellow CSEP.

The event will be held at the CSEP Auditorium, 6, Dr Jose P Rizal Marg, Chanakyapuri, New Delhi – 110021. Please note that this is an in-person event only. If you are in Delhi on the day, please join us for the seminar. The event will be available on the CSEP website and YouTube channel upon completion.

Register here to attend

About the event

A dated book by New York Times reporter Lawrence Lifshultz which was titled “Bangladesh – The Unfinished Revolution” provides the bloody background to the benighted birth of that country. The recent events in Bangladesh leading to the flight of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and subsequent happenings have been covered extensively by the media, academics and others. Yet, there is a need for in-depth, objective analysis of underlying factors for the current impasse in the governance of Bangladesh, possible future course of events and implications for India. Two former Foreign Secretaries Shyam Saran and Shivshankar Menon and a former Indian High Commissioner in Dhaka Deb Mukharji will reflect on the past and possible future course of India’s overall relations with Bangladesh including taking into account the attitudes of Pakistan, China and the incoming US administration led by Donald Trump.

Panellists

Shyam Saran

Amb. Shyam Saran is a former Foreign Secretary of India and has served as the Prime Minister’s Special Envoy for Nuclear Affairs and Climate Change. After leaving government service in 2010, he headed the Research and Information System for Developing Countries, a prestigious think tank focusing on economic issues (2011-2017) and was Chairman of the National Security Advisory Board under the National Security Council (2013-2015). Shyam Saran is currently the President of the India International Centre and an Honorary Senior Fellow with the Centre for Policy Research. His book, How India Sees the World was published in September 2017. He has now published his second book, How China Sees India and the World.

On January 26, 2011, Shyam Saran was awarded the Padma Bhushan by the President of India for his contribution to Civil Service. The Padma Bhushan is the third-highest national award in the country. The Emperor of Japan decorated him with the Spring Order, Gold and Silver Star on July 30, 2019, for his services to promoting India-Japan relations.

Shivshankar Menon

Amb. Shivshankar Menon is a Distinguished Fellow at CSEP, Visiting Professor at Ashoka University and Chair of the Ashoka Centre for China Studies. Menon served as National Security Advisor to the Indian Prime Minister (2010-2014); Foreign Secretary of India (2006-2009); and as Ambassador and High Commissioner of India to Israel (1995-1997), Sri Lanka (1997-2000), China (2000-2003) and Pakistan (2003-2006). He has served in the mission to the IAEA in Vienna and in the Department of Atomic Energy in Mumbai.

He was also a Distinguished Fellow with Brookings India. He has published Choices: Inside the Making of Indian Foreign Policy in 2016 and India and Asian Geopolitics: The Past, Present (Brookings Press USA, & Penguin Random House India) in April 2021.

Menon has been a Richard Wilhelm Fellow at the Center for International Studies at MIT and Fisher Family Fellow at the Belfer Center, Harvard University. In 2010, he was chosen by Foreign Policy magazine as one of the world’s “Top 100 Global Thinkers.” He attended the Scindia School, Gwalior and St. Stephens College of the University of Delhi, where he studied ancient Indian history and Chinese. He speaks Chinese and some German.

Deb Mukharji

Amb. Deb Mukharji was a member of the Indian Foreign Service (1964-2001) and retired as India’s Ambassador to Nepal. He had earlier served as High Commissioner to Bangladesh (1995-2000), to Nigeria (1986-1989) and as Consul General in San Francisco (1983-1986). He is an alumnus of the National Defence College (1976). In his diplomatic career he has served in Berne, Islamabad Bonn and Dhaka as also in various capacities in the ministries of External Affairs and Finance.

After retirement from the foreign service Shri Mukharji anchored over a hundred television discussions on Indo-Bangladesh relations and was the convenor of the Indo-Bangladesh Track II Dialogue (2005-2007). He is an occasional contributor to newspapers and journals.

Shri Mukharji has published four books: The Magic of Nepal (2005), Visions of the Infinite (2009),  A Quest Beyond the Himalaya (2013)  and Perspectives on Nepal (2016). His interests include trekking, photography, reading and music.

Moderator

Jaimini Bhagwati

Amb. Jaimini Bhagwati is a former Indian Foreign Service officer and a financial sector & derivatives specialist. He was appointed India’s High Commissioner to the United Kingdom in 2011. Immediately prior to this appointment, Bhagwati was India’s Ambassador to the European Union, Belgium, and Luxembourg. Earlier, he was Joint Secretary (Capital Markets and Pension Reforms) in the Ministry of Finance and he served in the Department of Atomic Energy in the mid-1980s. He was employed for eleven years in the World Bank Treasury in Washington DC in two phases between 1991 and 2005 and his responsibilities included issuance of World Bank bonds and pricing of associated derivatives transactions. After retiring from the Government of India, he was the Reserve Bank of India Chair Professor at ICRIER from 2014 until 2019. Currently he is a Distinguished Fellow at CSEP and an independent Board Member of Apollo Tyres Ltd.

He has a Master’s in Physics from St Stephen’s college in Delhi, Master’s in Finance from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and PhD from Tufts University.

In 2019, he authored The Promise of India: How Prime Ministers Nehru to Modi Shaped the Nation (1947–2019) published by Penguin.

Please contact Gurmeet Kaur at GKaur@csep.org for general queries and Ayesha Manocha at AManocha@csep.org for media queries.