On 9 November 2006, the IISS hosted a panel discussion with Myra Mac Donald, former Bureau Chief of Reuters in New Delhi and Brigadier (retd) Gurmeet Kanwal, Indian Army, Visiting Senior Research Fellow, South Asian Strategic Stability Unit (SASSU), London and Senior Fellow, centre for Air Power Studies, New Delhi. The panel discussed ‘The Siachen Conflict Revisited: Toward Disengagement and Demilitarisation?’. The panel discussion was chaired by Sir Hilary Synnott, Consulting Senior Fellow at IISS.
Ms Myra MacDonald has worked as a foreign correspondent for Reuters for 20 years, reporting from London, Paris, Cairo and New Delhi. She was Bureau Chief of Reuters in India in 2000-2003. In 2004, she took leave-of-absence to research the Siachen conflict, becoming one of the very few people to visit the war zone on both the Indian and Pakistani sides. Her book on Siachen, Heights of Madness, will be published next year. She currently works for Reuters in London.
Brigadier (retd) Gurmeet Kanwal is currently a Visiting Senior Research Fellow at the South Asian Strategic Stability Unit, London and Senior Fellow, Centre for Air Power Studies, New Delhi. He commanded an infantry brigade in the high-altitude Gurez Sector on the Line of Control with Pakistan (during Operation Parakram, 2001-03) and an artillery field regiment in counter-insurgency operations in the Kashmir Valley (during Operation Rakshak, 1993-94). He also served as Deputy Assistant Chief of the Integrated Defence Staff at HQ Integrated Defence Staff, New Delhi and as Director MO-5 in the Directorate General of Military Operations at Army Headquarters (dealing with threat, strategy and force structure). He is the author of several books including Nuclear Defence: Shaping the Arsenal, Pakistan’s Proxy War, and Artillery: Honour and Glory. He has recently completed a new book entitled Indian Army: Vision 2020.
