HM Izhar Alam grew up in Lilong, a small town in Manipur. When the state got embroiled in violent uprisings, he went to a boarding school in Assam. He holds a Bachelor of Arts (honours degree), and Masters in Political Science from Aligarh Muslim University. He is a University Gold Medal awardee from the same department as a graduate and post-graduate student. He is a recipient of the UGC PG Scholarship-URH and other prestigious scholarships. He is a PhD scholar and a University Grants Commission-Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Political Science at Aligarh Muslim University. His doctoral research is concerned with India’s Act East policy and the Northeast. His recent work includes a research paper, “Abrogation of Article 370 and the Question of Asymmetrical Federal Arrangement in Northeast India,” in SN Social Sciences, published by Springer Nature Switzerland, and a research paper, “Climate Change, Mitigation and International Politics: A Scenario of the Indian Perspectives in the Light of the Global Contexts,” in an edited volume in a publication by Springer Nature.
Kendall Belopavlovich (they/them) is a Doctoral Candidate of the Rhetoric, Theory, and Culture program at Michigan Technological University. Working at the intersections of film and media studies, and Indigenous studies, Kendall is a settler scholar whose work bridges disciplines, knowledge systems, and communities. Their current research interests include Japanese anime and manga portrayals of Indigenous peoples; land acknowledgement statements and anticolonial institutional education and outreach; and intersections of queer-polyamorous-gender identity. They are the Indigenous Studies area chair for the Midwest Popular Culture Association. Their work regarding the adaptation of The Last of the Mohicans novel by James Fenimore Cooper as Japanese manga is being published in a forthcoming book edited by Dr. Kendra Sheehan entitled, Cross-Cultural Influences Between Japanese and American Pop Cultures: Powers of Pop. A writer in many regards, Kendall is the author of Bloody Awakening (2020), and Some Summer Nights (2023).
Sudipta Bhattacharjee, a career journalist, was Resident Editor (Northeast) at The Telegraph in Kolkata. She is a columnist and feature-writer for the newspaper. In the nineties, she was based in Shillong and reported extensively from the region. She traveled to the United States on a Fulbright Research Fellowship in 2004-05 at the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding (CJP) in Virginia. On completion of her research in conflict management, with special focus on Northeastern India, she returned to CJP in 2015 and completed a course in Strategies for Trauma Awareness and Resilience as part of her specialization. She is now an Adjunct Professor of Media Science and Journalism at Brainware University, Kolkata.
Mouly Ieng is currently a Senior Minister in charge of special missions and the Chair of the National AIDS Authority of Cambodia. He was the architect of the Cambodian Government’s policy to fight against HIV/AIDS, leading Cambodia to reach the 90-90-90 target by 2017. Senior Minister Ieng has devoted much of his life to serving the Cambodian people through various posts in the Royal Government of Cambodia. He was a Member of the Supreme National Council of Cambodia, and he was one of the twelve Cambodian co-signatories of the 1991 Paris Peace Agreements that led to the establishment of a new Cambodia, with a multi-party system of democracy. As the Minister of Information from 1993-1998, he was instrumental in authoring the Press Law for the freedom of the Press in Cambodia. His awards include a degree of Doctor of Humane Letters, Honoris Causa by the Armstrong University, USA; the Grand Cross of the Royal Order of Cambodia, and the Medal of National Merit awarded by His Majesty the King; and the French Commander de la Legion d’honneur by President Jacques Chirac of France.
Himadri Lahiri retired as a professor from the Department of English and Culture Studies, the University of Burdwan, West Bengal in 2016. Subsequently, he taught at the Department of English, Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan for about a year. He is currently serving the School of Humanities, Netaji Subhas Open University, Kolkata as Professor of English. Lahiri has written extensively on Diaspora Studies and Indian English literature. His recent publications include two books—Asia Travels: Pan-Asian Cultural Discourses and Diasporic Asian Literature/s in English (Birutjatiya, 2021), and Diaspora Theory and Transnationalism (Orient Black Swan, 2019), two book chapters—“Pioneers Across Kala pani: Reading Girmitiyas etc” (Routledge, 2021), and “Generational Perspectives in Partition Narratives” (Pencraft, 2022), and a journal article, “Reading Modernism in The Waste Land: Eliot’s Use of Montage and Collage,” DUJES, Dibrugarh University Journal of English Studies (Vol. 30, March 2022). At present, he is working on a book project on the Partition of India. He is also interested in Postcolonial Literatures and Twentieth Century British Poetry.
Asad Latif is an editorial writer for The Straits Times, Singapore. He is the Co-General Editor of the 50-volume Singapore Chronicles series, and the author of several books, including Between Rising Powers: China, Singapore and India (2007), Three Sides in Search of a Triangle: Singapore-America-India Relations (2008), India in the Making of Singapore (2008), and Lim Kim San: A Builder of Singapore (2009). He graduated with Honours in English from Presidency College in Kolkata, was a Chevening Scholar in History at Cambridge, and was a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at Harvard. He served on the editorial committee of the Cambridge Review of International Affairs and was a member of the president’s committee of the Cambridge Union Society, the university debating club.
Tian Mashuang is a PhD student at Department of History, School of Humanities, Tsinghua University in Beijing. He received interdisciplinary academic training in International Relations, Chinese History, and Asian Studies at Peking University, London School of Economics and Political Science, and Tsinghua University. His research experience covers social sciences, international relations, history, area studies, and Chinese history. Currently, he is conducting PhD research on the Global History of tea, and the ‘Silk Road’ of the Tea Plant across Asia and Africa. The research focuses on the historical and commercial studies of tea, the geographical and industrial connections of tea cultivation, and geographical branding of tea products. The study tells how the tea plant connects the world with universalism and cosmopolitanism. His articles have appeared in English and Chinese journals, including the Rising Asia Journal, Xinrui Weekly, China Public Administration Review, Henan Social Sciences, Southeast Asia and South Asia Studies, and others.
Julie Banerjee Mehta holds MA and PhD degrees in English Literature and South Asian Studies from the University of Toronto, where she taught courses on the works of the Sri Lankan-Canadian novelist and poet, Michael Ondaatje. She conceptualized and taught the Chancellor Emerita Vivienne Poy-endowed course on Asian Literatures and Cultures in Canada at the Department of English, University of Toronto. Her translation of Tagore’s play Dak Ghar/Post Office was performed by Pleiades Theatre, Toronto, in 2010 to critical acclaim, and earned her the title of “One of Sixteen most Influential South Asians in Canada.” She is the author of Dance of Life: The Mythology, History, and Politics of Cambodian Culture, and co-author of a biography of Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen. Her recent major publications are “Toronto’s Multicultured Tongues: Stories of South Asian Cuisines,” in Edible Histories, Cultural Politics: Towards a Canadian Food History (University of Toronto Press, 2012). Her other book chapters are published in Narrating Race: Asia, (Trans)Nationalism, Social Change (Amsterdam/New York: Rodopi, 2011); and in Writing Asia: The Literatures in Englishes, Volume 1: From the Inside (Singapore: Ethos Books, 2007), as well as in several other volumes.
Vinod Kumar Pillai is an independent scholar with an interest in literary fiction, development studies, popular science, and short-story writing. He has published book reviews in the Rising Asia Journal (www.rajraf.org) on topics related to the literatures and politics of Southeast Asia, and is a reader for the Bengal Club Book Club. He holds a graduate degree in Agricultural Sciences, and worked for over thirty years in banking, specializing in behavioral science and counseling. Besides literary fiction, development studies, popular science and training, he also devotes time to cinema, podcasting, and stock photography.
Salikyu Sangtam is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at Tetso College in Dimapur, India. He teaches international relations theory (IRT) and political theory. His research focuses on Chinese thought, and non-western IRT and political theory. He has published papers (“All-Under-heaven” is Timeless: An Anthropology of Chinese Strategic Behavior” in Rising Asia Journal), and presented papers on Chinese strategic thought in international conferences. He has served as a resource person on numerous invited occasions, delivering lectures (on political psychology, Indian Constitution, Ambedkar, Tourism, and non-Western political theory) and in academic workshops. He was also invited to serve as a panelist on “Nagaland Special Development Zone” at the Business Summit at Nagaland International Trade Expo (NITEX) in November 2017.
Gurjit Singh retired as the Indian ambassador to Germany. He has served as ambassador to Indonesia, ASEAN, Timor-Leste, Ethiopia and The Republic of Djibouti. Currently, he is an Honorary Professor of International Relations Studies at the Indian Institute of Technology, Indore. He holds a Bachelors’ degree in politics from St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata, and a post-graduate degree in International Studies from the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. A 1980 batch officer of the Indian Foreign Service, he started his career in diplomacy with a posting in Japan and has since been posted in Sri Lanka, Kenya and Italy. Ambassador Singh has authored five books, The Abalone Factor on India-Japan business relations; The Injera and the Paratha on India and Ethiopia; Masala Bumbu and a comic book, Travels through Time, both on the India-Indonesia relationship; and Opportunity Beckons: Adding Momentum to the Indo-German Partnership. His last book is The Harambee Factor on the India-Africa partnership. He is the Consulting Editor of Rising Asia Journal and a member of the Rising Asia Foundation’s advisory board.
