Rao, who was India's ambassador to the US from Sep 2011 to Nov2013, previously served as foreign secretary. The first woman spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs, Rao also served as India's first female ambassador to China from 2006 to 2009.
The Brown-India Initiative is an interdisciplinary hub for the study of contemporary India, the university said.
Its goals are twofold: to produce first-rate academic research, and to contribute to public discourse on and in India through talks, events, and the convergence of figures from across the lines of academia, civil society, literature, public policy, and journalism.
