Pradeep Kumar Gautam

Biography

 Colonel P.K. Gautam (Retd.) is a veteran of the 1971 Indo-Pakistan War in Bangladesh and of Operation Meghdoot (Siachen glacier). He holds an MSc in Defence Studies and has been an Instructor-in-Gunnery. He last served in the faculty of studies at the School of Artillery, Devlali. Post premature retirement in 2000, Col. Gautam has 17 years of research experience. He joined IDSA in August 2005 as a Research Fellow. He has an abiding interest in Non-Traditional Security (NTS) including environmental security, water and climate change, as well as military affairs, issues relating to Tibet, and Kautilya’s Arthasastra. He was convener of the IDSA working group Security Implications of Climate Change for India (2009) and a member of the IDSA Task Force Report Water Security for India (2010). He is the lead author of the IDSA Task Force Report Tibet and India’s Security(2012).Since 2012/13, Col. Gautam has been steering the IDSA project ‘Indigenous Historical Knowledge’ and has a number of articles, three monographs, and five chapters on Kautilya’s Arthasastra in four edited volumes of which he is also the co-editor with Saurabh Mishra and Arvind Gupta of the trilogy Indigenous Historical Knowledge: Kautilya and His Vocabulary, Volumes I, II and III(20015/16). Some other select published books are: Environmental Security: Internal and External Dimensions and Response (New Delhi, Knowledge World, 2003); National Security: A Primer (New Delhi, Knowledge World, 2004); Operation Bangladesh(New Delhi, Manas, 2007);Composition and Regimental System of the Indian Army: Continuity and Change(New Delhi,IDSA/Shipra, 2008); Environmental Security: New Challenges and Role of Military(New Delhi, IDSA/Shipra, 2010

Research Interest

Defence Studies