Smruti S. Pattanaik

Dr Smruti S Pattanaik is a Research Fellow (SS) at the MP-IDSA. Her area of specialisation is South Asia. Her current research project is titled as “India’s Response to China’s Presence in South Asia: Challenges and Policy Options”.

Dr Pattanaik has been a recipient of many international fellowships. She was a Visiting Asia Fellow (Asian Scholarship Foundation, Bangkok) at the Department of International Relations, Dhaka University in 2004 and follow-up grantee in 2007, researching on politics of identity in Bangladesh. She was a recipient of Kodikara Award in 1999 (RCSS, Colombo), a Post-doctoral Fellow at FMSH (Fondation Maison des Science de l’Homme), and was attached to the Centre for International Relations and Research (CERI, Science Po), Paris. She was selected to attend the Symposium on the East Asian Security (SEAS) Program conducted by the US State Department and USPACOM in 2011. She was a Visiting Fellow (September-October 2011) at the International Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO), she was a Visiting Professor on ICCR’s India Chair at the University of Colombo for a semester.

She has lectured on India’s foreign policy and South Asia at the Colombo University, Sir John Kotelawala Defence University, Asia Centre in the University of Melbourne, University of Karachi, University of Peshawar and University of Dhaka.

She was the Course Director of the India-Bangladesh Studies Programme jointly conducted by Jamia Millia Islamia and Dhaka University. She developed a course on “Political Developments in Bangladesh 1971-2010” as part of the European Union-funded project on Curriculum Development on Peace- building in Europe and South Asia, organised by the Nelson Mandela Centre for Peace and Conflict Resolution, Jamia Millia Islamia in 2011.

Dr Pattanaik has published more than 60 research articles in various peer-reviewed journals both in India and abroad. She has contributed more than 50 chapters in edited books, and delivered lectures on security issues both in India and abroad. She has authored a book titled Elite Perception in Foreign Policy: Role of Print Media in Influencing India-Pakistan Relations 1989-1999 (Manohar Publishers & RCSS: 2004), and a Monograph titled Afghanistan and its Neighbourhood: In Search of a Stable Future (PRIO-IDSA, 2013). She has edited two books South Asia: Envisioning a Regional Future, Pentagon Press, Delhi, (2011) and Four Decades of India Bangladesh Relations: Historical Imperatives and Future Direction, Gyan Publishing House, (2012), and two reports titled Pakistan on the Edge (2013) and Unending Violence in Pakistan: Analysing the Trend (2014). She is a member of MP-IDSA’s task force on neighbouring countries and is coordinator of Pakistan project. She writes for the Daily Star and Dhaka Tribune (Bangladesh) and is on the Editorial Board of MP-IDSA’s flagship journal, Strategic Analysis published by Routledge.