Narayanappa Janardhan is a senior research fellow at the Gulf-Asia Programme at the Emirates Diplomatic Academy. He is the author of Boom amid Gloom: Spirit of Possibility in the 21st Century Gulf (Ithaca, 2011). As honorary fellow at the Centre for Gulf Studies at the  University of Exeter, he is also the managing assistant editor of the Journal of Arabian Studies (Routledge). With a broad-based interest in sociopolitical developments in the Middle East, Janardhan’s research areas include political reforms, international relations (Gulf-Asia relations), education, media, gender, labor, migration, human rights, and human trafficking in the Gulf region. After obtaining his PhD from the School of International Studies at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, he was program manager for Gulf-Asia relations and editor of “Gulf in the Media” at the Gulf Research Center in Dubai. He is a regular contributor to various media outlets in the Middle East, as well as international academic publications.