NEW ROAD TO MANDALAY: The promise and challenges of a new relationship Friday, May 10; 2013: 5.00 – 6.30 pm iLead Auditorium, Kolkata

Myanmar’s gradual transition to democracy opens a new chapter of opportunity in Indo-Myanmar relations. With significant changes taking place in Myanmar which impacts its polity, economy, society and foreign affairs, its relations with the external world is also evolving steadily. It would be a truism yet paradoxical to say that the new Myanmar is not truly new. There is a complex transition underway in this nation. While the broad direction is set, the actual pace of change is yet to be gauged. Myanmar rejoining the global mainstream has also become the latest arena for Asia’s contentious geopolitical environment. With the world fast taking note of Myanmar, the window of opportunity is short for India to stamp its own footprint, vis-à-vis existing and emerging competition. Mr. Pramit Pal Chaudhuri, Foreign Editor, Hindustan Times and Member of National Security Advisory Board, Government of India will lead the discussion. This session will be moderated by Dr. Kingshuk Chatterjee, Assistant Professor, Department of History, Calcutta University and guest faculty at the Institute of Foreign Policy Studies.

WHEN Friday, May 10, 2013 5:00 PM  - 6:30 PM  Please be seated by 4.45 pm. High Tea will be served following the event   WHEREiLEAD Institute113/C/1, Matheshwartala Road, Topsia, (Ahead of Vishwakarma Building, /Park Regency), Kolkata – 700 046 (To see map and directions, please click here)     RSVPThursday, May 9, 2013 by 5:00 PM

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Mr. Pramit Pal Chaudhuri, Foreign Editor, Hindustan Times and Member of National Security Advisory Board of Government of India. Pramit Pal Chaudhuri is the Foreign Editor of the Hindustan Times and a senior associate at the Rhodium Group. He is presently serving as a member of the Indian government’s National Security Advisory Board and as a delegate for a number of track-two strategic and economic dialogues. These include the CII-Aspen Strategy Group India-US strategic dialogue, the Aspen Institute of India-China Reform School dialogue and the trilateral India-US-Japan dialogue. Pramit’s affiliations outside of India include being a member of the New York-based Asia Society’s Global Council, the Aspen Institute of Italy, the Institute of International Strategic Studies in London and the Mont Pelerin Society. In 2007-08 he was the Bernard Schwarz Fellow at the Asia Society in New York and a Hubert H. Humphrey Fellow at the University of Maryland College Park in 1994-95. Pramit has also been a media fellow at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, South Asia Fellow at the Henry Stimson Centre, and Visiting Fellow at his alma mater Cornell University.

Dr. Kingshuk Chatterjee, Assistant Professor, Department of History, Calcutta University and guest faculty at the Institute of Foreign Policy Studies. Dr Kingshuk Chatterjee is an Assistant Professor in the department of history. His doctoral work was on the intellectual origins of the Islamic Revolution of Iran, at the Calcutta University. He currently offers optional courses on the history of Germany and that of the Modern Middle East at the department. He also shares the compulsory courses on the Making of the Modern West and International Relations since 1945, in the department of History. Dr Chatterjee is the Deputy Director, Centre for Pakistan and West Asian Studies and is guest faculty at the Institute of Foreign Policy Studies, Calcutta University. He began his career as a lecturer in the department of History, Scottish Church College, Calcutta (2000-06). He then became a fellow at the Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Institute of Asian Studies, Calcutta. During 2006-07, he served at the United States Naval Academy, Annapolis, Maryland, as a Fulbright Scholar-in-Residence. There he offered a course each on the Rise of India and its Global Role, and one on the International Relations of the Middle East