Arpita Basu Roy is Fellow at the Maulana ABul Kalam Azad Institute of Asian Studies (MAKAIAS), Kolkata. She has been working on Central and South Asia, with Afghanistan being the area of her specific interest since 2000. She has contributed several articles on population movement, gender issues, problems of transitional politics and regional cooperation to several research journals and edited books She has been an invited speaker at various national and international seminars and has visited Afghanistan twice. She is also the author of Afghanistan: Toward a Viable State (Delhi and London: Hope India Publications and Greenwich Millennium Press Ltd, 2002).