Indian appointed head of top US think-tank's South Asia centre

Washington: Bharath Gopalaswamy, a US-based space technologies expert who had worked with ISRO, is the new Director of top American think-tank Atlantic Council's South Asia Centre.   Gopalaswamy, who joined the Council in October 2013 as deputy director of the South Asia Centre, replaces Pakistan's Shuja Nawaz, who was the founding director of the South Asia Centre.        

The South Asia Centre since 2009 has served as the Atlantic Council's focal point for work on greater South Asia as well as relations between these countries, neighbouring regions, Europe, and the United States. The Centre seeks to foster partnerships with key institutions in the region to establish itself as a forum for dialogue between decision-makers in South Asia, the US, and Europe.     "Bharath brings an unusual mixture of technical expertise from his engineering background, entrepreneurial skill learned on the job, and the rare capability to deftly navigate both South Asian and Western cultures," said Frederick Kempe, Atlantic Council president and CEO.        

"His hiring marks a significant deepening of the Council's engagement across South Asia, and in particular in India," he said. Before joining the Council, Gopalaswamy managed the Programme in Arms Control, Disarmament and International Security at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he oversaw developing projects on South Asian security issues. He has held research appointments with the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute and with Cornell University’s Judith Reppy Institute of Peace and Conflict studies. He has previously worked at the Indian Space Research Organisation's High Altitude Test Facilities and the EADS Astrium GmbH division in Germany.