Mr Shahid Javed Burki is Visiting Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of South Asian Studies National University of Singapore. He was educated at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar and at Harvard University as a Mason Fellow. He spent most of his professional life at the World Bank, where he held a number of senior positions, including Director of China and Mongolia Department (1987–94) as well as Vice President for Latin America and the Caribbean (1994–99). Mr Burki took leave of absence from the bank to take up the position of Pakistan’s Finance Minister (1996–97). His books include Changing Perceptions, Altered Reality: Pakistan’s Economy under Musharraf (Oxford University Press); Beyond the Centre: Decentralising the State (World Bank), South Asia in the New World Order (Routledge), and Pakistan: Fifty Years of Nationhood (Westview Press). He is Chairman of The Institute of Public Policy, a Lahore-based Pakistan think-tank, and resides in Washington DC.

Dr Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury is Principal Research Fellow at the Institute of South Asian Studies National University of Singapore. He was Foreign Advisor (Foreign Minister) of Bangladesh from 2007 to 2009. During his public service career of four decades, he has held the posts as Ambassador and Permanent Representative to both New York (2001–07), and Geneva (1996–2001). At the United Nations, he has also been chairman of a number of committees, including Social Commission, Population and Development Commission, Second (Economic) Committee, Information Committee and President of the Conference on Disarmament. He was knighted by the Pope in 1999. In 2004, the New York City Council issued a proclamation naming him as one of the world’s leading diplomats, acknowledging his global contribution to advancing welfare, alleviating poverty and combating terrorism. Dr Chowdhury has a PhD and MA in International Relations from the Australian National University, Canberra. He has been a prolific writer on issues pertaining to current multilateral diplomacy and contributes regularly to learned journals and the media.

Riaz Hassan is Emeritus Professor of Sociology at Flinders University and Visiting Research Professor at the Institute of South Asian Studies National University of Singapore. He has also held academic appointments at the University of California Los Angeles and Yale University. He was a Fulbright Scholar at the Ohio State University, from which he received his PhD in sociology. His recent publications include Inside Muslim Minds (Melbourne University Press), Islam and Society: Sociological Explorations (Melbourne University Press), Life as a Weapon: The Global Rise of Suicide Bombings (Routledge), and Faithlines: Muslim Conceptions of Islam and Society (Oxford University Press). He is a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia and a Member of the Order of Australia.