Prof. Sanjay Chaturvedi, President
Sanjay Chaturvedi is Professor of International Relations and Dean, Faculty of Social Sciences at South Asian University (SAU), New Delhi. His research interest revolves around theory and practices of geopolitics, with special reference to Polar Regions, Indian Ocean and South Asia. Before joining SAU in June 2018, Chaturvedi was Lala Lajpat Rai Professor in Political Science at Panjab University, Chandigarh. He has more than 35 years of experience in research and teaching, including postdoc at the Scott Polar Research Insitute, University of Cambridge, England (1992-1995) with Nehru Centenary British Commonwealth Fellowship, followed by the award of highly coveted Leverhulme Research Grant. Chaturvedi is 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 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.
Chaturvedi’s publications include Polar Regions: A Political Geography (Wiley Blackwell, 1996), co-authored Climate Terror: A Critical Geopolitics of Climate Change (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015) and co-edited South Asia: Boundaries, Borders and Beyond (Routledge, 2022); Environmental Sustainability from the Himalayas to the Oceans: Struggles and Innovations in China and India (Springer, 2017); Geopolitical Orientations, Regionalism, and Security in the Indian Ocean, Energy Security and the Indian Ocean Region and The Security of Sea Lanes of Communication in the Indian Ocean Region (Routledge Revivals, 2015).
Chaturvedi is the Chairman of Indian Ocean Research Group, (IORG), currently 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 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 International Affairs (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). Chaturvedi was elected as the co-chair of Research Committee on Political and Cultural Geography (RC 15) of International Political Science Association (IPSA) for two terms (2006-2009; 2009-2012), and also served on the Steering Committee of the IGU Commission on Political Geography from 2004 to 2012. He served on the Indian Delegation to the 43rd Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting (ATCM), Paris, 14-24 June, 2021. He was one of the lead authors of Working Group II, Chapter 10 (Asia) IPCC Sixth Assessment Report (AR6). He has visited 51 countries in connection with various academic assignments, and participated in over 170 conferences/seminars, both in India and abroad, as keynote speaker, paper presenter, session chair, organiser or discussant.
______
Gurpreet Singh Goraya, Vice-President, IORG
G.S. Goraya is qualified in business law with a degree of BBALLB from Symbiosis Law School, Pune. He has completed an MA in Political Science from Panjab University, Chandigarh, and won distinctions for his M.Phil dissertation also completed at Panjab University. He has received a scholarship from the University Grants Commission and has served as Junior Research Fellow and Senior Research Fellow at the Department of Political Science at Panjab University. Among his early editorial responsibilities, he has served as Copy Editor of the Panjab University Research Journal Social Sciences and Book Reviews Editor of the Journal of the Indian Ocean Region. Currently he is the Commissioning Editor of the Journal of the Indian Ocean Region.
Bipandeep Sharma, General Secretary, IORG
Bipandeep Sharma is currently a Research Analyst at the Non-Traditional Security Centre at the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies & Analyses (MP-IDSA), New Delhi. His areas of interest include geopolitics of the Polar Regions with particular emphasis on emerging securitization in the Arctic.
Bipandeep Sharma has obtained his M.Phil. from the Department of Defence and National Security Studies, Panjab University, Chandigarh. He is currently pursuing his doctoral degree from the same university. Prior to joining MP-IDSA he was a Senior Research Fellow (SRF) at Department of Political Science, Panjab University. He has taught papers on Climate Change and Sustainable Development; Contemporary Global Politics and International Relations, to the B.A. (Hons.) programme at the Institute of Social Science Education and Research, Panjab University, Chandigarh.
He is a currently the Book Reviews Editor of Journal of Journal of Indian Ocean Region (JIOR) and a General Secretary of Indian Ocean Research Group (IORG).
Sayantan Haldar, Joint Secretary, IORG
Sayantan Haldar is currently a Doctoral Candidate at the Department of International Relations, South Asian University, New Delhi, India, and the Joint Secretary of the Indian Ocean Research Group. (IORG). His doctoral research delves into India’s evolving maritime security strategy in the Indian Ocean. He is broadly interested in questions of maritime geopolitics with specific focus on the evolving dynamics in Indian Ocean Region and the Indo-Pacific. More recently, he has been looking at the growing involvement of Europe, and especially, France, in the emerging strategic landscape of the Indo-Pacific. Some of his writings have been recently published in International Affairs, Journal of the Indian Ocean Region, Commonwealth & Comparative Politics, India Quarterly, etc.
Dr. Poorva Trikha, Treasurer, IORG
Poorva Trikha is a Senior Assistant Professor of English at GGDSD College, Sector 32, Chandigarh. Academically driven, she was awarded a Gold Medal in M.Phil. (English) by Panjab University, Chandigarh in 2013. She did her Ph.D. from the Department of English and Cultural Studies at Panjab University, Chandigarh, receiving her doctorate in the year 2020. Her areas of research specialization include Visual Culture, Image Studies and Photojournalism. She has presented 10 research papers in International Conferences and Seminars. She has published 9 research papers in International Journals. She has been writing poetry since the age of 12 and has published four books titled “Leftover Ink”, “Photojournalism”, “Worded Void” and “Ellipses”. Her poems have been published in many journals including The Tribune, The Criterion and Muse India. She was awarded the ‘21st Century Emily Dickinson Award’ in 2022 by Bookleaf Publishing house. She writes routinely at her Instagram page @wordedvoid.
Executive Members
Prof. Dennis Rumley
Dennis Rumley is a well-known political geographer from the ‘Newcastle School’, is the Foundation Editor of the Journal of the Indian Ocean Region [tandonline.com] as well as being outgoing Foundation Chair of the Indian Ocean Research Group (IORG) – iorgroup.net. He has taught and researched at the University of Western Australia, the University of Tokyo, Kyoto University and more recently at Curtin University where he was Professor of Indian Ocean Studies. He is now Emeritus Professor at Curtin University.
Dennis Rumley has in excess of 140 publications, including more than a dozen books. He started his academic life as an electoral geographer with a strong interest in political boundaries at all scales. However, for the past 30 years, Dennis Rumley’s research has centred principally on the geopolitics of Australia’s regional relations, first, with the Asia-Pacific, second, with the south-west Pacific and then with the Indian Ocean Region. The latter led to a series of collaborative projects on various aspects of the geopolitics of the Indian Ocean Region with IORG colleagues, especially Sanjay Chaturvedi and Timothy Doyle. Many of the Indian Ocean books arising from this work have been reissued by Routledge in the past 5 years.
Dennis Rumley has also had a strong association with the regional peak body – the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA). For example, he was appointed as Australia’s focal point to the Indian Ocean Rim Academic Group (IORAG) in December 2010 and became Vice-Chair of the IORAG at the IOR-ARC meeting in Bangalore in November 2011 for a period of two years. With considerable IORA support, he helped to organise a major Conference in Kenya which resulted in the completion of The Political Economy of Indian Ocean Maritime Africa, New Delhi: Pentagon Press, which was published in 2015.
For the past four years, he has been engaged in two main projects – first, attempting to set up an Indian Ocean Research Centre at Curtin University, and, second, in researching and writing with Tim Doyle, The Rise and Return of the Indo-Pacific (Oxford University Press, 2020).
Timothy Doyle
Professor Timothy Doyle, B.A. Hons. (Melb), M.A. High Distinction (Adel), Ph.D. (Griffith), is Professor of Politics and International Studies at the University of Adelaide in Australia, where he teaches Global Environmental Politics, International Political Economy and Political Fiction. He is Founding Chair of The Indo-Pacific Governance Research Centre (IPGRC) in the School of Social Sciences in the Faculty of Arts.
He also holds other university affiliations. He is Emeritus Professor of Politics and International Relations at Keele University in the United Kingdom. At Keele, he served as Founding Head of the Research Centre for Politics, International Relations and Environment (RC for SPIRE). Doyle is also Distinguished Research Fellow at the Australia-Asia-Pacific Institute (AAPI), Curtin University, Western Australia.
Professor Doyle has taught and contributed to university courses in the United Kingdom, the United States, Malaysia, India and Australia and has been a dedicated environmental and human rights activist since the 1980s.
In 2014, the Commonwealth of Australia appointed Professor Doyle as Chair of the Indian Ocean Rim Association Academic Group (IORAG) for 2014 – 15 with a remit to encourage and lead closer academic cooperation and output on Indian Ocean issues and projects relevant to IORA members. The IORA Academic Group, based in Ebene, Mauritius, was created to provide an opportunity to build bridges and increase networking between the three tiers of government, the private sector and academia within the Indian Ocean Rim. In 2016, he was reappointed by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade to continue as the Australian Government Academic Focal Point for the Indian Ocean Rim from 2016 to 2019.
Currently, Doyle is Project Leader for the Australian Research Council Discovery Project (2012-2016) entitled: ‘Building and Indian Ocean Region.’ The remit: ‘The Indian Ocean Region, of vital geopolitical importance to Australia, is the heart of the Third World – overwhelmed by chronic poverty, precarious political systems, and conflicting ethno-religious identities. This project will document attempts at constructing regional identities and institutions, and facilitate the process of building a secure Region’.
He is the current Chief Editor of the Journal of the Indian Ocean Region (Routledge: London); and serves on the editorial board of the international journal Social Movement Studies (Routledge: London). He is Series Editor of the Introductions to Environment – Society and Environment Series for Routledge, and also serves as Series Editor, with Phil Catney, of the Transforming Environmental Politics and Policy Series, Routledge, Oxford. He is Founding Director of Human and Environmental Security for the Indian Ocean Research Group (IORG) based in Chandigarh and Perth.
Professor Doyle has published widely in a diverse range of journals including Third World Quarterly, Geopolitics, Environmental Politics, Critical Social Policy, Social Movement Studies, Mobilization, Australian Journal of Political Science, Journal of the Indian Ocean Region, and Social Alternatives.
Prof. P.V. Rao
Prof. P.V. Rao obtained M.A. in Political Science from Osmania University, with a first division; M.Phil and Ph.D in European Studies from School of International Studies, JNU. He was awarded the British Council Scholarship at London School of Economics for research; Fulbright Post-Doctoral Fellowship at the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Johns Hopkins University, Washington; Ford Foundation Fellowship at Bandarnaike International Centre, Colombo.
Prof. Rao’s areas of research interest include Regional Trade Systems; SAARC; Maritime Studies; South & Southeast Asian political and economic relations. Prof. Rao published six books including Indian Ocean: Annotated Bibliography; Regional Cooperation in Indian Ocean; India and Indian Ocean; India and Australia, New Horizons; India and ASEAN: Partners at Summit; Directory of UGC Area Study Centres.
Prof. Rao is the founder Editor of Indian Ocean Survey, a biannual international journal, now being published by the Routledge, UK. He published over forty research articles in Indian and foreign journals. Prof. Rao was the Director of Centre for Indian Ocean Studies, Osmania University; Member, UGC Committee on Area Studies; Member COM, Indian Ocean Research Group, Perth. He regularly lectures at College of Air Warfare; college of Naval Warfare and several other academic institutions.
____
Dr. Vijay Sakhuja, Honorary Member
Dr. Vijay Sakhuja is a former Indian Navy officer and served for 26 years in various ranks and positions. Currently he is the Director of School of Integrated Coastal and Maritime Security Studies at Rashtriya Raksha University, an Institution of National Importance and a National University. Earlier, he served as the Director, National Maritime Foundation, New Delhi, India and has been on the faculty of a number of think tanks and universities in India and overseas. Sakhuja specializes in Indo-Pacific affairs, maritime and coastal security legal issues, Blue Economy, Arctic politico-strategic dynamics, 4th Industrial Revolution technologies and maritime energy transition. He has published several books, edited volumes and monographs.
Dr. Naresh Kumar
Dr. Naresh Kumar is currently is teaching as Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science, HNB Garhwal University (A Central University) in Srinagar, Uttarakhand. He has worked as UGC-SAP fellow (2010-14). He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science (2019) from the Department of Political Science (CAS), Panjab University, Chandigarh. He was fellow at NVP-Nansen interdisciplinary Summer School in 2013, Svalbard, Norway. His research and teaching interest areas are international relations, foreign policy, geopolitics and environmental/climate change politics. He has published articles in various national and international journals. He has presented 15 papers/invited lectures in various conferences.
Pranjal Chaturvedi
An MBA in International Business from the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, I have spent a large part of my career working in the Banking space, with wide ranging exposure to Corporate lending, financial markets, platform development and product management.
Throughout my academic and professional career, I have worked in differing capacities and roles exposing myself to diverse opinions and environments. I have held leadership positions throughout my academic life, most notably as the President of IIFT’s student council.
Apart from the above stated, I am a keen observer of Global Politics and International Relations, a passion that compels me to keep a close eye on underlying trends worldwide.