On July 24, Gateway House, in collaboration with the Centre for Policy Research, held a brainstorming session on the theme ‘India and Her Neighbours’ and the effort was to look at India’s states playing a significant role in economic diplomacy with the countries of South Asia which adjoin their borders.
The session looked at cross-border linkages between the two Punjabs of India and Pakistan, Gujarat-Sindh, Rajasthan-Sindh, and Mumbai-Karachi. This project focused on changing the narrative on regional cooperation in India and the neighbouring countries by expanding the set of stakeholders to include the relevant constituencies in the provinces that have international borders. The objective was to promote cooperation in a region that is fast growing, yet is one of the least integrated economic regions of the world. Manjeet Kripalani, Co-founder and Executive Director, Gateway House and Akshay Mathur, Head of Research, Gateway House were the rapporteurs for the session.
Manjeet Kripalani, Co-founder and executive director Gateway House, is the former India Bureau chief of Businessweek magazine. During her extensive career in journalism (BusinessWeek, Worth and Forbes magazines), she has won several awards, including the Gerald Loeb Award, the George Polk Award, Overseas Press Club and Daniel Pearl Awards. Kripalani was the 2006-07 Edward R. Murrow Press Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, New York, which inspired her to found Gateway House. Her political career spans being the deputy press secretary to Steve Forbes during his first run in 1995-96 as Republican candidate for U.S. President, to being press secretary for the Lok Sabha campaign for independent candidate Meera Sanyal in 2008.
Akshay Mathur is the Head of Research at Gateway House: Indian Council on Global Relations. Prior to this, he was Principal Architect, Strategy and Architecture group of the Institutional and Retail Brokerage division, Fidelity Investments, Boston. He has an MBA (Honours) from Boston University with concentration in Finance and Business Analysis with a focus on Global Business and Global Macro Economics. He is also the co-founder of Aasra, an NGO based in Rajasthan.
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