Fareed Rafiq Zakaria, born January 20, 1964, in Mumbai, India, is an Indian-born American journalist, political commentator, author, and television host recognized for his expertise on international affairs, global politics, and U.S. policy. Raised in a Muslim family, he attended the Cathedral and John Connon School in Mumbai before pursuing higher education in the United States. Zakaria earned a Bachelor of Arts from Yale University in 1986, where he was president of the Yale Political Union and editor-in-chief of the Yale Political Monthly, followed by a Master of Arts and a PhD in government from Harvard University in 1993, studying under prominent scholars like Samuel P. Huntington and Robert Keohane. Early in his career, he directed a research project on American foreign policy and became managing editor of Foreign Affairs in 1992, redesigning its publication schedule. Zakaria joined Newsweek as editor of its International edition in 2000 and was a weekly columnist until 2010, later serving as editor-at-large and columnist for Time magazine from 2010 to 2014. Since 2008, he has hosted the CNN program Fareed Zakaria GPS, conducting interviews with world leaders including Barack Obama, Narendra Modi, and Vladimir Putin. He also writes a weekly column for The Washington Post and has contributed to ABC News and PBS’s Foreign Exchange. Zakaria is the author of bestselling books such as The Post-American World and In Defense of a Liberal Education. He serves on the boards of Yale University, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission, and Shakespeare and Company, and is recognized as a fellow alongside environmentalist Fred Krupp. His work has garnered numerous accolades, including the Padma Bhushan from India in 2010, the Order of Merit from Ukraine in 2022, and multiple National Magazine Awards. Identifying as a centrist, Zakaria resides in New York City, was married to Paula Throckmorton from 1997 until their 2018 divorce, and has three children. His influence as a foreign policy intellectual has been widely acknowledged, with Foreign Policy and Esquire naming him among the most influential thinkers of his generation.