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September 22, 2009

C. Raja Mohan Named the Henry Alfred Kissinger Scholar in the John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress

Librarian of Congress James H. Billington has appointed C. Raja Mohan, professor of South Asian studies at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, as the Henry Alfred Kissinger Scholar in Foreign Policy and International Relations in the John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress.

At the Library, Mohan will research the evolution of India’s grand foreign policy strategy and its growing security cooperation with the United States. A leading Indian foreign-policy analyst, Mohan is the ninth scholar to occupy the Kissinger chair. The position was created in 2000 through the generosity of friends of Kissinger to honor the former secretary of state and to emphasize the importance of foreign affairs.

Mohan is a contributing editor for The Indian Express, New Delhi. His columns also appear in the Yomiuri Shimbun (Tokyo) and the Oriental Morning Post (Shanghai). He earlier served as the strategic-affairs editor and Washington correspondent for The Hindu.

Earlier in his career, Mohan was professor of South Asian studies at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He was a senior fellow at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses in New Delhi, where he worked on arms-control and security issues. In addition, he served as a research associate at India’s National Institute of Science, Technology and Development Studies and was a Jennings Randolph Peace Fellow at the U.S. Institute for Peace in Washington D.C.

Mohan earned a master’s degree in nuclear physics and a Ph.D. in international relations from Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. He has served on a United Nations committee on arms control in outer space during 1991-93, and he was a member of India’s National Security Advisory Board from 1998-2000 and 2004-06.

Mohan has published widely on regional and international security. His recent books include "Crossing the Rubicon: The Shaping of India's Foreign Policy" (2004) and "Impossible Allies: Nuclear India, United States and the Global Order" (2006).

The Kissinger Chair was created through the generosity of friends of former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger, to honor him and to emphasize the importance of foreign affairs. The Kissinger Chair offers outstanding thinkers and practitioners a unique opportunity to pursue advanced research in the largest and most international collection of library materials in the world. Previous chair holders include Aaron Friedberg, Klaus Larres, Lanxin Xiang, Melvyn Leffler, James Goldgeier, Charles Kupchan, William R. Smyser, and Teresita Schaffer.

Through a generous endowment from John W. Kluge, the Library of Congress established the Kluge Center in 2000 to bring together the world's best thinkers to stimulate and energize one another to distill wisdom from the Library's rich resources and to interact with policymakers in Washington. For more information about the Kluge Center, visit www.loc.gov/kluge/.

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PR 09-181
09/22/09
ISSN 0731-3527

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