Ms. Huma Haque
Associate Director, South Asia Center
Atlantic Council
With Commentary from:
Mr. Shuja Nawaz (from Washington DC via Skype)
Director, South Asia Center
Atlantic Council
Mr. Mohan Guruswamy (from New Delhi via Skype)
Senior Fellow, South Asia Center
Atlantic Council
Moderated by
Amb. Ali Sarwar Naqvi
Executive Director
Center for International Strategic Studies
New pro-development and business leadership in India and Pakistan present the opportunity to change the narrative of conflict between the two countries. Over the course of sixty-six years, India and Pakistan have continued an implacable rivalry marked by periodic wars and hostilities, and invested heavily in the acquisition of new and more lethal weapons systems. Yet increased spending has not brought foolproof security to either country, but instead has pulled resources from much-needed economic development in Pakistan and social investment in India, among other things. What are both India and Pakistan foregoing in terms of economic development and social progress by continuing their military hostility and engaging in periodic conflict? The report reviews this historic rivalry and makes recommendations for greater confidence building between the two countries. The speakers will engage in a discussion about the report's recommendations with an audience in Islamabad.
DATE: Thursday, June 19, 2014
TIME: 3:00 p.m. – 4:30 p.m. PKT
LOCATION: Center for International Strategic Studies
1, Kohistan Road, Street No. 2, F-8/3
Islamabad, Pakistan
Please RSVP to Muhammad Faisalmfaisal89@live.com
Speaker Bios
Mohan Guruswamy is a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council's South Asia Center. Guruswamy heads the Centre for Policy Alternatives, an independent and privately funded think tank in New Delhi. He is the author of several books on policy issues, the latest being The Looming Crisis in India's Agriculture; India China Relations: The Border Issue and Beyond; and Chasing the Dragon: Will India Catch-up with China?
Huma Haque is the associate director of the South Asia Center at the Atlantic Council. Prior to joining the Council, Huma worked at Acumen Fund as a business development associate in Karachi, Pakistan. Before this, she was a project associate for the United Nations Capital Development Fund. Huma has also worked as a management consultant at Accenture in the communications and high tech group. She holds a Masters in Public Administration, concentrating in international policy and management, from New York University and completed her BA in Hispanic studies and Economics at the University of Pennsylvania.
Ali Sarwar Naqvi is presently serving as the founding Executive Director of the Center for International Strategic Studies (CISS), an independent and autonomous think-tank for research and analysis of current regional and international strategic issues from a Pakistani perspective. Naqvi has a long diplomatic career of thirty-six years, from 1970 to 2006, which culminated in senior Ambassadorial positions, served at the United Nations, both in New York and Vienna, and in Washington DC, London, Paris, and Brussels. After serving as Pakistan's Ambassador to Austria and the IAEA, he was appointed as a member of the Chairman's Advisory Council in the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC), and functioned as adviser to the PAEC Chairman on International Affairs, with a particular focus on IAEA matters. He is also currently serving as a distinguished visiting fellow at National Defence University, and examiner of the Federal Public Service Commission for International Relations.
Shuja Nawaz, a native of Pakistan, was made the first director of the South Asia Center at the Atlantic Council in January 2009. He is a political and strategic analyst and writes for leading newspapers and websites, and speaks on current topics before civic groups, at think tanks, and on radio and television worldwide. He has worked with RAND, the United States Institute of Peace, The Center for Strategic and International Studies, and other leading think tanks on projects dealing with Pakistan and the Middle East. He has also advised or briefed senior government and military officials and parliamentarians in the US, Europe, and Pakistan. Mr. Nawaz was educated at Gordon College, Rawalpindi, where he obtained a BA in economics and English literature and the Graduate School of Journalism of Columbia University in New York. He was a newscaster and news and current affairs producer for Pakistan Television 1967-1972 and covered the 1971 war with India on the western front. He has worked for the New York Times, the World Health Organization, and has headed three separate divisions at the International Monetary Fund. He was also a director at the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna from 1999 to 2001. Mr. Nawaz was the managing editor and then editor of Finance & Development, the multilingual quarterly of the IMF and the World Bank and on the editorial advisory board of the World Bank Research Observer. He is the author of Crossed Swords: Pakistan, its Army, and the Wars Within.