An impressive lineup of distinguished speakers will be coming to the Opera House for the 2024 Camden Conference, INDIA: Rising Ambitions, Challenges at Home. 

Nirupama Rao

For the Conference’s Keynote Speaker we are honored to welcome Nirupama Rao, who served as India’s Foreign Secretary from 2009 to 2011. Her stellar career included ambassadorships to the U.S., China and Sri Lanka and the post of Deputy Chief of Mission of the Indian embassy in Moscow. Since retiring from the Foreign Service she has taught at Brown, Columbia and other universities.  Her publications include the 2021 book, The Fractured Himalaya: India Tibet China, 1949 to 1962.

Ashutosh Varshney

Indian-born political scientist, currently the Sol Goldman Professor of International Studies and the Social Sciences and Professor of Political Science at Brown University, Prof. Varshney also directs the Saxena Center for Contemporary South Asia at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs. He has also taught at Harvard University and the University of Michigan and  is the author of Battles Half Won: India’s Improbable Democracy (2013), and several other books.

Prerna Singh

Dr. Singh is the Mahatma Gandhi Associate Professor of Political Science and International Studies at Brown University. She has published numerous award-winning books and articles on human development, public health, ethnicity and nationalism, including How Solidarity Works for Welfare: Subnationalism and Social Development in India (Cambridge University Press 2016). Singh’s research focuses on the improvement of human well-being as it relates to the promotion of social welfare and to the mitigation of ethnic conflict and competition.

Bratap Bhanu Mehta

Currently the Laurence S. Rockefeller Professor for Distinguished Teaching at Princeton University, Dr. Mehta was previously Vice-Chancellor of Ashoka University, in Sonipat, India; he resigned his position in 2021 charging that university officials had told him he was a political liability because of his support for freedom of expression and faculty research. He is the author of The Burden of Democracy (Penguin 2003) and his forthcoming work looks at philosophical ideas about religion in 20th Century India.

Tanvi Madan

Madan’s work explores India’s role in the world and its foreign policy, focusing on India’s relations with China and the United States. She also researches the U.S.’s and India’s approaches in the Indo-Pacific Region, as well as the development of interest-based coalitions, especially the Australia-India-Japan-U.S. Quad. She is the author of Fateful Triangle: How China Shaped US-India Relations during the Cold War (Brookings, 2020). Her ongoing work includes a book project on the recent past, present, and future of the China-India-US triangle.

Ashley J. Tellis

As a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Dr. Tellis specializes in international security and U.S. foreign and defense policy with a special focus on Asia and the Indian subcontinent. On assignment to the U.S. Department of State he was intimately involved in negotiating the civil nuclear agreement with India. Dr. Tellis also served as senior adviser to the ambassador at the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi, and currently serves as an adviser to the U.S. Chief of Naval Operations. He previously served on the National Security Council staff as special assistant to President George W. Bush.

Arvind Subramanian

During Prime Minister Modi’s first term, Dr. Subramanian served as Chief Economic Adviser to the Government of India, but he is now critical of government policies and notes that the Indian economy has stalled. Subramanian has published extensively on the Indian economy, and is the author of two critically acclaimed books: Eclipse: Living in the Shadow of China’s Economic Dominance (PIIE, 2011), and India’s Turn: Understanding the Economic Transformation, (Oxford, 2008). Foreign Policy magazine named him as one of the world’s top 100 global thinkers in 2011.

Daniel Markey

Dr. Markey has two decades of academic, think-tank, and government experience focused on international relations and U.S. policy in Asia, with a particular focus on South Asia and China’s evolving role in the region. He is senior advisor on South Asia at the United States Institute of Peace, and a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Institute of John’s Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies. Dr. Markey is the author of China’s Western Horizon: Beijing and the New Geopolitics of Eurasia (Oxford, 2020).

Fernand de Varennes

As the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Minority Issues, Fernand de Varennes focuses on the human rights of minorities and migrants, and the prevention of ethnic conflicts. Over the past three decades Prof. Varennes has taught at universities in Africa, Australia, Asia and Europe, and is currently Visiting Professor at the Université Catholique de Lyon, France; Vytautas Magnus University of Kaunas, Lithuania; and the National University of Ireland in Galway.  He has more than 250 publications globally, translated into some 30 languages.