Mar 15 2026 to Mar 15 2026 11:30 a.m.

EVENT HAS ENDED

Where

Bangalore International Centre

7 4th Main Rd, Stage 2, Domlur 560071

Event Description

When the world shifts, what anchors a nation’s choices?

The Bengaluru launch of India’s Tryst With the World: A Foreign Policy Manifesto arrives at a moment of visible churn in India’s external relations. With shifts in United States policy under a second Trump presidency, long-assumed alignments have grown uncertain; prompting rapid recalibrations toward China, renewed invocations of friendship with Russia, and fresh questions about strategic autonomy. The book frames this moment not as disruption alone, but as an opportunity to rethink how India engages the world.

Co-edited by Salman Khurshid and Salil Shetty, the volume sets the stage for a wide-ranging conversation on diplomacy, values, and global responsibility. With Nirupama Rao and Suhasini Haider in conversation and Latha Reddy moderating, the evening reflects on India’s foreign policy record and its evolving role in a post-Trump international order, inviting careful listening, debate, and reflection as the contours of the future come into view.

A Q&A with the audience will follow.

Speakers

Salman Khurshid
Former Union Law Minister & External Affairs Minister
Salman Khurshid is a former Union Law Minister and External Affairs Minister. He was also a member of the Congress Working Committee. He previously taught law at Oxford University and is Honorary Fellow of St Edmund Hall, Oxford.

Salil Shetty
Indian Human Rights Activist
Salil Shetty is an internationally recognized voice on human rights and development from the Global South. He served as secretary general of Amnesty International at the global level, after leading the United Nations Millennium Campaign from the UN’s headquarters in New York. He was also chief executive of ActionAid, vice president of Global Programs at the Open Society Foundations and a senior fellow at Harvard University.

Nirupama Menon Rao
Ambassador & Former Foreign Secretary, Government of India
Nirupama Rao is a former Indian Foreign Service officer. She retired as Foreign Secretary to the Government of India, the senior most position in the Foreign Service, being the second woman to occupy the post (2009-2011). She was the first woman spokesperson (2001-02) of the Indian Foreign Office. She served as India’s first woman High Commissioner (Ambassador) to Sri Lanka (2004-2006) and to the People’s Republic of China (2006-2009). She was Ambassador of India to the United States from 2011 to 2013.

In retirement she has been a Senior Visiting Fellow in International and Public Affairs at the Watson Institute at Brown University where she has taught an undergraduate seniors course on “India in the World” and George Ball Adjunct Professor at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. Ambassador Rao was a Fellow at the India-China Institute of The New School, New York in 2016 and a Public Policy Fellow at The Wilson Center, Washington D.C. in 2018 and 2022.

Suhasini Haidar
Diplomatic Editor, The Hindu
Suhasini Haidar is the Diplomatic Editor of The Hindu, regularly writing on Foreign policy issues, and hosts a weekly online show “WorldView with Suhasini Haidar”. Prior to this, she was Foreign Affairs editor and prime time anchor for CNN-IBN (2005-2014), and Correspondent for CNN International’s New Delhi bureau before that.

In 2015, she was the recipient of the most prestigious Indian print journalism ‘Prem Bhatia’ award, and has won a series of awards for her work in Television as well.

Over the course of her 28-year reporting career, Suhasini has covered the most challenging stories & conflicts from the most diverse regions including Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Libya, Lebanon and Syria.  In India, she has covered the foreign affairs beat for over a decade and her domestic assignments include political profiles and in-depth reportage from conflict zones including Kashmir, where she was injured in a bomb blast in 2000.

Suhasini earned a Bachelor’s degree at Lady Shriram College in Delhi, and then completed her Masters in Broadcast Journalism at Boston University’s College of Communication, USA. She lives in Delhi with her husband Nadim and her two daughters Ava Mumtaz and Maya Mehr.

Latha Reddy
Ambassador, IFS (Retd)
Ambassador Latha Reddy served in the Indian Foreign Service from 1975-2011, and her postings included Consul General in Durban, South Africa, and Ambassador to Portugal, and later to Thailand. She served as Secretary (East) in the Ministry of External Affairs and was appointed as India’s Deputy National Security Advisor in the Prime Minister’s Office from 2011-2013. She was the Co-Chairman, Global Commission on Stability in Cyberspace, and at the National Security Council, she was responsible for cybersecurity and other critical internal and external security issues. She also served as a Commissioner on the Global Commission on Internet Governance.

Since her retirement, Ambassador Reddy is involved with several organizations and think tanks, both globally and in India. She also heads and works actively on several NGOs and Trusts in the fields of heritage, theatre, international affairs, creative arts, classical dance and music. She is currently, among other positions, a Fellow of the Observer Research Foundation and serves on the Adjunct Faculty at the Takshashila Institution.