Arvind Gupta is the Director of Vivekananda International Foundation (VIF), a Delhi-based independent, non-partisan think tank focusing on research on foreign policy, defence and security-related issues from the Indian perspective.During 2014–2017, he was the Deputy National Security Advisor and Secretary, National Security Council Secretariat in the Government of India. He was associated with the National Security Council Secretariat as Joint Secretary from 1999 to 2007.During 2012–2014, he was Director General of the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA), an autonomous institute set up by the Indian Ministry of Defence. He was Lal Bahadur Shastri Chair on National Security at the IDSA during 2008–2014. He was the managing editor of Strategic Analysis, IDSA’s flagship academic journal.A former diplomat, Dr Gupta joined the Indian Foreign Service (IFS) in 1979. He has served in Indian Mission in Moscow, London and Ankara, and worked on several desks in the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA).He is also an Honorary Professor in the Department of Defence and National Security Studies, Panjab University, Chandigarh. His interests are in India’s foreign policy, national security, history, governance, culture and civilization. He also writes articles on popular science.Having 20 years of policy-level experience in national security issues, he has been a part of several official and Track-II discussions on security. He has written and edited several books and articles on global, regional and national security issues as well as foreign policy.His latest book How India Manages Its National Security was published in 2018.Anil Wadhwa was a member of the IFS from July 1979 till May 2017. In his 37-year career, he has been ambassador of India to Italy, San Marino, Thailand, Oman, Poland and Lithuania, and has served in Hong Kong, Beijing (twice), permanent mission of India in Geneva and worked on deputation with the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons in The Hague where he headed their media and public affairs and government relations branches. Ambassador Wadhwa was head of the East Europe division in the MEA in New Delhi and looked after relations with Russia and Eastern European countries. As Secretary (East) in the MEA, he oversaw relations with ASEAN, South East Asia, Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), the Middle East and West Asia. He has attended a host of international conferences and was Indian delegate to the conference on disarmament in Geneva, first committee in New York, as well as to the ASEAN, ASEM, ADMM and Small Island States meetings such as Forum for India–Pacific Islands Cooperation (FIPIC). Ambassador Wadhwa has contributed a number of articles on foreign policy, disarmament and international security. He is fluent in Chinese and knows French. He has been a senior fellow (January–October 2018), and since then, a distinguished fellow with the VIF, New Delhi. He also serves as an independent Director/Advisor on some corporate boards.
