Book Talk - The Comrades and the Mullahs: China, Afghanistan and the New Asian Geopolitics

Ananth Krishnan is the Beijing correspondent for The Hindu, and the author of 'India's China Challenge' (2020). In 2019, he was a Visiting Fellow at Brookings India. He was previously the Beijing-based Associate Editor at the India Today Group until August 2018. Krishnan has closely tracked Sino-Indian relations for a decade, from the boundary question and the rapidly expanding trading relationship to the long history of cultural engagement between the neighbours. His reporting has taken him to all but three of China's 33 provinces and regions, from the China-India border in Tibet and Xinjiang, and the trading markets and factories of Guangdong, to the forgotten ruins of ancient Indian temples in Fujian. He has interviewed China's Premier, Foreign Minister and Defence Minister on Sino-Indian relations. He has reported widely on China's neighbourhood diplomacy with a focus on Beijing's engagement in South Asia, and has closely tracked China's Belt and Road Initiative since its unveiling in 2013.

Stanly Johny is the international affairs editor with the Hindu. A PhD in international studies from the Centre for West Asian Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, he has been writing on international affairs and Indian foreign policy in Hindu Group publications for nearly a decade. An IVLP fellow of the U.S. State Department and an India–Australia Youth Dialogue alumnus, he has also contributed to think-tanks such as the Middle East Institute in Washington, D.C., and the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses in New Delhi. He is the author of The ISIS Caliphate: From Syria to the Doorsteps of India (2018).

Aziz Amin is a governance professional with cross-disciplinary experience in policy analysis, security, and socio-political participation in conflict and post-conflict settings in Afghanistan and the South Asian region. He served as the principal secretary and special assistant for the former president of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan until the collapse of Kabul in August. He writes about socio-political and security issues in South Asia and the Middle East. He has participated in complex debates for broader public audiences and his articles and opinions have been published in prestigious media outlets.