Ranjit Gupta is a retired Indian Foreign Service officer. During his 39-year career with the Ministry of External Affairs, he served successively in Cairo, New York, Gangtok, Jeddah (Deputy Chief of Mission), Frankfurt and Kathmandu. Later, he was successively India’s Ambassador to Yemen (North), Venezuela, Oman, Thailand and Spain and finally was Head of the non-official Office in Taiwan. One of his postings at Headquarters was as Head of the West Asia and North Africa Division in the Ministry of External Affairs dealing with Arab countries. Currently, he is a Distinguished Fellow of the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies; and, a visiting Fellow at the Institute of Chinese Studies. Until recently, he was a Member of India’s National Security Advisory Board. He is leading the Indian team in a joint research project on India-GCC Relations sponsored by India's Ministry of External Affairs with the Gulf Research Center; he has very recently been granted a two-year research project on India-GCC Relations by the Indian Council of World Affairs. He has been delivering lectures at think tanks and other academic institutions in India and abroad and participating in conferences, seminars and workshops primarily relating to India's relations with the Gulf region, Southeast Asia and East Asia, as well as countries and issues of relevance to these regions.