Amitabh Mattoo
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Professor Amitabh Mattoo, born in Srinagar on 26 June 1962, is the Vice Chancellor of the University of Jammu, and one of India's leading thinkers and writers on international relations.
Professor Mattoo became the youngest Vice Chancellor of the University of Jammu in November 2002.
Professor Mattoo was recently elected to the Governing council of Pugwash, the Nobel prize winning NGO. He is also Professor of Disarmament Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University and concurrently Director of the Core Group for the Study of National Security. He was, till recently, a member of India's National Security Council's Advisory Board and was also a member of the task force constituted by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Global Strategic Developments. The Task Force will examine various aspects of global trends in strategic affairs and their implications for India.
He had his early education in Burn Hall School, Srinagar and the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He earned a D. Phil in International Relations from the University of Oxford, United Kingdom. He has been visiting Professor at Stanford University, USA, the University of Notre Dame and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He has been Chairperson of the Centre for International Politics, Organization and Disarmament at Jawaharlal Nehru University.
He is one of the few Indian academics in the field of international relations who has actually had an impact on foreign and domestic policy: nuclear policy, India-US relations, India -Pakistan ties and Kashmir are a few of the fields in which Mattoo's contribution will be recognised. Professor Mattoo's books on India's nuclear policy, India-Pakistan relations and writings on Kashmir are seen as breaking new ground.
The University of Jammu under Mattoo has emerged as a centre of academic and extracurricular excellence. Mattoo’s leadership has given the University a new profile with the institution entering into academic collaboration with a host of top international institutions. The quality of research and teaching has improved tremendously and increasingly academicians from the University of Jammu are being called to articulate the Indian perspectives on various issues in prestigious institutions abroad.
As Vice-chancellor of the University of Jammu, Mattoo has emphasised the importance of infrastructure ensuring that the University of Jammu today competes with the best institutions of higher education, nationally and internationally making it a rarity among India's regional universities most of which are in poor shape academically and infrastrcuturally. The emphasis on infrastructure is the outcome of his stated conviction that the creation and dissemination of knowledge in a knowledge society cannot not take place in a technology and infrastructure deficient environment and that an institution devoted to knowledge creation and dissemination has to engage actively with the world outside with all tools at its disposal.
During his tenure (and with the active support of the present Chief Minister of the State Ghulam Nabi Azad as well as the previous Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Syed) University of Jammu took the innovative decision to spread itself geographically to cover all parts of Jammu region by establishing campuses in various parts of Jammu like Bhaderwah, Kathua, Poonch with satellite campuses in Surankote, Reasi and Patnitop. The emphasis in these centres is on programmes like Business Management and IT with an aim to supply skilled manpower to a skill hungry Corporate India as also to ensure that world class technical education is brought to the doorsteps of deserving students from remote parts of the state enabling them to participate in in India's growing knowledge economy.
Recognizing his contribution to education, the President of India has decided to honour Professor Mattoo on the occasion of the Republic Day (2008) with the Padmashree the first time a serving Vice-chancellor in Jammu and Kashmir has been so honoured.
