Thaindian News

New Delhi, Oct 12 (IANS) Strategic affairs think-tank Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA) Wednesday invited nominations for the K. Subrahmanyam Award for research on strategic and security issues.

The award will be given away on its foundation day Nov 11.

Instituted in 2007 to honour Subrahmanyam, one of India’s foremost strategic experts, the award carries a citation and a cash prize of Rs.50,000, along with providing access to other research facilities in IDSA. Subrahmanyam died in February.

Subrahmanyam, a former secretary (defence production), was the founding director of IDSA and was considered the doyen of the Indian strategic community.

He was regularly consulted by the governments on issues of foreign policy and international security. He also headed the 1999 Kargil war review committee and submitted a voluminous report on security lapses and remedies, the chief among them being the creation of a Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) to serve as a single point of reference for the government on military matters.

“The awardee will be selected from among the invited nominations and preference will be given to the nomination of those younger than 50 years of age. The nominations will be evaluated by an independent jury comprising eminent experts from diverse fields,” an IDSA release said.

Some of the previous winners of the award are Sudha Mallingam for her outstanding work in the area of energy security and Ashok Behuria, an IDSA research fellow, for his work on Pakistan.

In 2009, the award was conferred on Harsh Pant, visiting fellow with Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, and currently teaching at Kings College, London.

The 2010 award was given to Shrikanth Kondapalli, a professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University, for his work on China.

The nominations for the 2011 award can be sent to IDSA director general N.S. Sisodia by Oct 31, the release added.