Dr. Joshua Thomas is the former Deputy Director of the ICSSR North Eastern Regional Centre, Shillong & was also Coordinator, ASEAN Studies Centre, Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India, Shillong. He is known for his pioneering research in diverse fields of social sciences in North-East India. His areas of interest include issues related to ethnicity, insurgency, peace process, border trade, displacement and India’s relations with neighbouring countries particularly with Bangladesh, China and Myanmar. He is author, co-author, editor & joint-editor of more than 20 books and some of them include, Act East and India’s North-East (with K. Sarda, 2017: Pentagon Press, New Delhi); Look East to Act East Policy – Implications for India’s Northeast (with Gurudas Das, 2016: Rutledge, New Delhi), India-China: Trade and Strategy for Frontier Development(with Gurudas Das, 2010: Bookwell), Indo-Bangladesh Border Trade: Benefiting from Neighbourhood (with Gurudas Das, 2008: Akansha), Indo-Myanmar Border Trade: Status, Problems and Potentials (with Gurudas Das and B Singh, 2005:Akansha); Engagement and Development: India’s North East and Neighbouring Countries, (New Delhi: Akansha Publications, 2006). His latest co-edited book on Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar (BCIM) Sub-regional Cooperation: Geo-economics & Geo-politics was published by Routledge, New Delhi, 2018. He was the Managing Editor of the journal Man and Society – A Journal of North-East Studies. He was a distinguished scholar at the RIIO, Yunnan University of Finance & Economics, Kunming during 2017, and is currently Adjunct Professor at the Martin Luther Christian University, Shillong; and Assam Don Bosco University, Guwahati, Assam.