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A team of three members from the Geneva Centre for Security Policy (GCSP) visited the VIF on 14 March 2016 for an interaction on a wide range of issues. The team comprised of Colonel Christain Buhlmann (Head of Regional Development Program, GCSP), Colonel (GS) Christof Gertsch (DA for India and Singapore) and Colonel Urs Amiet (Senior program Adviser, GCSP). The VIF panel was led by Lt General R.K Sawhney with the other members being Brig Vinod Anand, Commodore Gopal Suri, Group Captain Lalit Joshi and Colonel Ashish Sirsikar.

Lt General R.K Sawhney started the proceedings by giving a brief overview of the functioning of VIF and also touched upon the areas of expertise that VIF possesses. Amongst the many things that he spoke on, he particularly laid stress on the fact that, VIF has working relationships with many global think tanks and fruitfully engages with them on a wide range and variety of topics. Giving an example of these relationships, he pointed out the success of the Quad Plus Dialogue which VIF undertakes with its global partners. He also brought out that, in continuation of the global interaction that VIF has with other think tanks, VIF would be particularly delighted to establish a relationship with the GCSP.

While giving a brief about their institution, the GCSP delegation brought out that their institution had been established over 20 years ago and was now engaged in the three major areas of Education, Research and Global Fellowship Programs. They felt that VIF and GCSP could fruitfully engage in a number of areas of interest such as 1) Researchers from VIF pursuing a Non Resident Fellowship with the GCSP through its Global fellowship
Program. 2) Undertaking of common research 3) Engaging in bilateral discussions on areas of common concern such as Asian security, cyber security, IOR security and other such issues. 4) Specialists from VIF engaging in a skype conversation with the students of courses run at GCSP

Lt General R.K Sawhney brought out that while the points suggested by GCSP were welcome, some issues which could be immediately undertaken for implementation were 1) Commence a bilateral dialogue on a mutually agreed topic by the year end Towards this end he suggested that, the first such dialogue should be held at VIF with a team from GCSP visiting the VIF in Nov – Dec 2016 2) Sign a MOU at the earliest so as to formally commence our relationship 3) Exchange published material 4) VIF would be glad to post GCSP articles on its website

The interaction concluded with both the VIF and GCSP agreeing to commence a long and durable relationship at the earliest as well as looking forward to jointly working together in areas of common interest.