YCAPS Research Fellow Sam Baron recently completed a month-long residency at O.P. Jindal Global University (JGU) in Delhi, India, as part of the Motwani Jadeja Fellowship. During the fellowship, Baron engaged with senior figures across India’s political, legal, and policy establishment, including meetings with the Speaker of the Lok Sabha, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of India, and India’s Union Minister of Law and Justice. He also met with leading thinkers in India’s foreign policy community, including Dr. Harsh Pant of the Observer Research Foundation (ORF), Dr. Happymon Jacob of the Council for Strategic and Defence Research (CSDR), and Prof. C. Raja Mohan of the National University of Singapore.
As part of his research, Baron traveled to Mumbai to conduct fieldwork on California–India relations and to engage with India’s strategic affairs community. While in Mumbai, he attended Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam Ki Oar, a major geopolitics conference co-organized by the Ministry of External Affairs’ Policy Planning and Research Division, the Vivekananda International Foundation (VIF), and India Foundation. He also met with government officials, business leaders, and researchers from leading think tanks, including ORF and Gateway House.
On January 27th, Baron delivered a public lecture at JGU presenting his research on subnational economic diplomacy between California and India. The lecture examined how states and cities—rather than federal governments alone—are emerging as critical drivers of bilateral cooperation. Baron highlighted L.A.’s role as a strategic node linking Indian markets to U.S. consumers, arguing that city-level engagement can complement and help stabilize national-level economic relations. The event featured a video message from Markos Kounalakis, California’s “Second Gentleman” and husband of Lt. Governor Eleni Kounalakis, who underscored California’s position as the world’s fourth-largest economy and the importance of deepening the state’s ties with India through two-way trade and foreign direct investment.
The Motwani Jadeja Fellowship brought together a diverse cohort of American scholars, policy thinkers, and journalists from organizations including the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), Rhodium Group, Johns Hopkins SAIS, and the University of Virginia. By cultivating a cadre of American experts with on-the-ground experience and understanding of India’s political and policy landscape, the fellowship lays a foundation for long-term strategic cooperation between the world’s two largest democracies.
