Secretariat
Manpreet SETHI

Manpreet SETHI (Senior Research Adviser)

Senior Research Adviser at APLN and Distinguished Fellow at the Centre for Air Power Studies, New Delhi

Dr Manpreet Sethi is a Senior Research Adviser at APLN and a Distinguished Fellow at the Centre for Air Power Studies, New Delhi, where she leads the project on nuclear security. She is an expert on a range of nuclear issues, having published over 120 papers in academic journals of repute. Over the last 25 years she has been researching and writing on subjects related to nuclear energy, strategy, non-proliferation, disarmament, arms and export controls, and BMD. Her current focus areas include nuclear security instruments (UNSCR 1540, summits, treaties and laws, PSI, CSI, etc) and nuclear governance (regimes and architecture).

Sethi is author of books Code of Conduct for Outer Space: Strategy for India (2015)Nuclear Strategy: India’s March towards Credible Deterrence (2009), and Argentina’s Nuclear Policy (1999) as well as the co-author of India's Sentinel (2014)Nuclear Deterrence and Diplomacy (2004), and editor of Towards a Nuclear Weapons Free World (2009)Global Nuclear Challenges (2009)Nuclear Power: In the Wake of Fukushima (2012) and Global Nuclear Landscape: Nuclear Energy, Non-proliferation and Disarmament (2022).

She has successfully completed a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Centre de Sciences Humaines and published occasional papers on "Second Tier Nuclear States: India’s Nuclear Strategy" and "The French Nuclear Energy Experience: Lessons for India". In May 2015, she completed the two year ICSSR fellowship during which she worked on the Code of Conduct for Outer Space.

Sethi lectures regularly at leading establishments of Indian Armed Forces, Police and Foreign Services. A member of the Prime Minister’s Informal Group on Disarmament in 2012, she has been part of the country’s Track II initiatives. She is also a member of the Executive Board of the Indian Pugwash Society and a Consultant with the global Nuclear Abolition Forum.

Sethi is a recipient of the prestigious K Subrahmanyam award, a national honour conferred by the IDSA on a scholar for excellence in strategic and security studies. In a rare honour for a civilian academic, she has received commendations by Chief of the Air Staff (2020) and Commander in Chief of the Strategic Forces Command (2022).

She is member of the International Group of Eminent Persons set up by Mr Fumio Kishida, Prime Minsiter of Japan, to identify pathways to a nuclear weapons free world.