Smruti S. Pattanaik, Ph.D, is Research Fellow at the Institute of Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA), New Delhi. Her area of specialization is security and foreign policy issues in South Asia with special focus on Indo-Pak security relations, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Her other areas of research include migration and refugees issues. Dr Pattanaik has contributed to journals and books extensively in India and abroad. She is currently a recipient of the Asia Fellowship 23 and is researching on State Formation in South Asia: Role of Identity and Nationalism in the Making of Pakistan and Bangladesh'. She is a Visiting Fellow at the Department of International Relations, Dhaka University, Dhaka, and is also attached to Substainable Development Policy Institute (SDP), Islamabad as a Visiting Research Fellow for conducting research on the above-mentioned topic.