The independent think tank Global Dialogue Forum (GDF), which publishes the foreign policy journal Global Dialogue Review (GDR), announces its arrival on the world stage, after five years of uncompromising commitment to the values of integrity and objectivity, all done without ties to big business or government. GDF is a non-profit trust that is carving out an intellectual space over a range of geopolitical issues concerning the Developing World, from security to the environment to the economy to law. Having grown out of roots in a country with a colonial past, a formidable present and a greatly promising future, GDF believes it has a legitimacy to seek out and collaborate with similar societies across the world, from China to Central Asia to Russia to Indonesia to Africa.

⁃ To engage every stakeholder in society – from the state to those at grassroots levels – in unfettered debates and discussions as well as through seminars and conferences.
⁃ Through Global Dialogue Advisory & Advocacy, it will provide honest and
authoritative assessment of country and corporate risk.
⁃ To help develop, through partnerships with teaching institutions, a generation of influencers to shape an equitable future.
⁃ To sensitise the vulnerable, especially women, in conflict and other contentious zones. This work will be done mainly through the Global Dialogue Remote Learning Academy.
⁃ To publish analyses that are sensitive to the concerns and cultures of emerging societies at the heart of GDF.

To this end, it will run internship and research programmes as well as online certificate courses.

GDF has already done what no other Indian think tank has been able to do so far – regularly organise major conferences overseas, from China to the UK.

In London, last November, our conference on India’s suitability as a global centre for dispute resolution was in partnership with UK’s premier think tank, Chatham House, the Royal Institute of International Affairs.

In China, no Indian entity has ever conducted a conference on the scale GDF/GDR did in 2016, with key partners, the Communist Party, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), whose respect for us is reflected in their participation in the annual Global Dialogue Security Summits.

GDF was planning this year for the first ever foreign organised security conference in China to mark 70 years of diplomatic relations between India and China when the current epidemic struck.

GDF plans joint academic centres with eminent local partners in China, Kazakhstan, Russia, Indonesia, Ethiopia and Sweden.

It believes China, India, Indonesia, Central Asia, Russia and Africa will define the global geopolitical landscape of the 21st Century.

Its academy will focus on the role of women in conflict resolution, climate change, the global economy and international law.

It will conduct live, interactive courses with distinguished speakers from around the world to a global classroom of students in various certificate courses.

Its governing council will include Dr. Genet Zewdie, Ethiopia’s former Minister of Education and Director General, Women’s Strategic Development Center, Dr Prashant Goswami, Chairman of the Institute of Frontier Science and Application (IFSA) and member of the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and Dr. Yang Xiaoping, Associate Fellow at National Institute of International Strategy and Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

GDF is well positioned in terms of those we have partnered in events, ranging from Chatham House and the School for International Arbitration, Queen Mary, University of London (QUML), German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Foundation – Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (KAS), the Chinese Academy of
Social Sciences (CASS) and the Indian Armed Forces Integrated Command’s think tank, the Centre for Joint Warfare Studies (CENJOWS).

The Chairman of both GDF and GDR is Mr. Moses Manoharan, who had served with Reuters across the world for nearly two decades. He was also regional head of Reuters Television and an Indian television channel. He is on the board of the Delhi World Foundation that runs nearly 50 schools.