Kanti Bajpai


Kanti Prasad Bajpai is an Indian academic-analyst and a former headmaster of The Doon School, Dehradun, India, and is a notable international affairs analyst on Indian television. He is known to be an expert on Indo-China relations. He is currently a professor at National University of Singapore and was the Vice-Dean for Research of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy.

Early life and education

Kanti Prasad Bajpai comes from an eminent family of Indian diplomats: his father, Uma Shankar Bajpai was a former Indian High Commissioner to Canada; an uncle, K.S. Bajpai was a former Ambassador to United States; and his grandfather, Sir Girija Shankar Bajpai, was Agent-General for India in the United States prior to India gaining independence.
Bajpai, like most of his family before him, completed his schooling at the prestigious The Doon School. After leaving Doon in 1972, Bajpai obtained his Bachelor of Arts in Economics and Master of Arts in political science from the University of British Columbia in British Columbia, Canada, and returned to Doon and taught there in 1981. Dr. Bajpai went to North America to earn his PhD in Political Science from the University of Illinois in 1982.

Career

Bajpai returned to India in 1989 and taught at Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda for three years, he went back to America to teach at Wesleyan University. In 1993 he returned again to India to the Institute of Contemporary Studies of the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation. In 1994 he joined Jawaharlal Nehru University as professor of international studies. In 2000, he was a visiting professor at Notre Dame University in South Bend, Indiana. He also worked as a researcher at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. the same year.
In June 2003, Bajpai was appointed the eighth Headmaster of The Doon School. During his tenure at Doon, he was instrumental in modernizing the facilities.
After completing his tenure as Headmaster in 2009, Bajpai left Doon to join the School of Inter Disciplinary Area studies, Wolfson College, Oxford. After a short stint at Oxford, he joined the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at National University of Singapore as a Senior Professor. He is married to Bobbi King, and they have one daughter, Gayatri, and one son, Rudra.

Literary work