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Raza Rumi

Global Faculty in Residence, Spring 2016
ra122@nyu.edu

B.Sc., Economics, London School of Economics, 1991
M.Sc., Social Policy, London School of Economics, 1992

Raza Ahmad Rumi is a policy analyst, journalist, and author from Pakistan. For over a decade, he has been affiliated with The Friday Times, Pakistan’s foremost liberal weekly paper as a writer and an editor. Rumi is a commentator for several publications, including Foreign Policy, Huffington Post, New York Times, The Diplomat, Fair Observer, CNN and Al Jazeera, Daily O, Scroll India, The Hindu Express, The Indian Express, The News, DAWN, and Express Tribune, Pakistan. In Pakistan, he worked in the broadcast media as an analyst and hosted talk shows at Capital TV and Express News. He manages the blog Pak Tea House, a platform for young writers and activists. In recent years, he was also the director of The Jinnah Institute, a public policy think tank. His recent book, Delhi by Heart: Impressions of a Pakistani Traveler, was published by Harper Collins in 2013.     Prior to his foray into journalism and public affairs, Rumi worked at the Asian Development Bank as a governance specialist. As an international development professional, he worked on designing and implementing projects for UK’s Department For International Development, UNDP, UNICEF, World Bank, among others. Rumi also led the Network for Asia Pacific Schools & Institutes of Public Administration and Governance. His work as a public policy practitioner builds on his stint with the Government of Pakistan’s Administrative Service and United Nations Peacekeeping Mission in Kosovo. His work in broadcast mass media brought him under the surveillance of violent extremists in Pakistan. A militia linked to Taliban attacked him in March 2014, an assassination attempt that he narrowly survived. Rumi left Pakistan and, since May 2014, he has been a fellow at the New America Foundation, United States Institute of Peace and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). He is a nonresident fellow at NED and the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs, Georgetown University.  

Teaching and Research Interests

South Asian Studies; public policy (access to justice  decentralisation  peace-building); media freedoms; violent extremism and reform in Muslim societies 

Raza Rumi