ADVISOR (SPECIAL), URBAN GOVERNANCE & CITY DEVELOPMENT
Madhu Sivaraman
RESEARCH SCHOLAR
D Dhanuraj PhD
Founder & Chairman, CPPR
TP Sreenivasan
Ambassador, Advisor CPPR
TP Sreenivasan is former Ambassador and Permanent Representative of India to the United Nations, Vienna and Governor for India of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna. TP Sreenivasan served in the Indian Foreign Service for 37 years and has nearly 20 years of experience in multilateral diplomacy and has represented India at a number of international conferences organised by the United Nations, the Commonwealth and the Non-Aligned Movement. He has chaired several UN Committees and Conferences. He was a member of the National Security Advisory Board of the Government of India, and was the Vice-Chairman and Executive Head of the Kerala State Higher Education Council with the rank of Vice-Chancellor.
Rahul V. Kumar
RESEARCH FELLOW (MARKET ECONOMICS)
Rahul V. Kumar is a Research Fellow (Market Economics) at CPPR. He is a postgraduate in Economics and has an MPhil in Applied Economics and International Relations from Jawaharlal Nehru University (New Delhi). He has been associated with CPPR for the last six years in different capacities. Before being a full-time consultant, Rahul was the Director (Research) at the Centre and has guided several projects for the centre. His focus areas of research during this period were liberalisation of the liquor industry and promoting private participation in higher education. Some of these works have received widespread media coverage at the national level. Before joining CPPR, Rahul was part of the Knowledge Management team at Ernst & Young (Technopark, Trivandrum, India). He has also worked as a researcher with International SOS (New Delhi). Currently, he teaches graduate students.
Meenuka Mathew
FELLOW (PROGRAMME DESIGN & EVALUATION)
Meenuka Mathew is a Teaching & Research Fellow at Jindal School of Government & Public Policy, O.P. Jindal Global University (JGU) with a MA in Public Policy. She is currently the assistant editor of Jindal Journal of Public Policy. In 2019, She co-founded Policy Talks.
Dr. Reetika Syal
SENIOR FELLOW (GOVERNANCE & EDUCATION)
Reetika is a Senior Officer, Research at CPPR. She has a Ph.D in Political Science from Institute for Social and Economic Change, Bangalore, and was Assistant Professor at JAIN (Deemed-to-be) University, Bangalore, for more than 8 years, before joining the organisation. She has also worked as a Postdoctoral Fellow at Wageningen University & Research, The Netherlands and IIT- Delhi in 2018-19, on a project on Civil Society Advocacy with her research focusing on State-Civil Society Relations in Disaster Management in India. She is a part of the Lokniti Network in Delhi, and has been a part of various elections and democracy related studies, along with being a resource person for Lokniti’s Annual Summer School on Quantitative Data Analysis for more than a decade.
Dr. Tarun Arora
A researcher with a demonstrated history of working in the development space, Dr. Tarun Arora is skilled in Project Management, Monitoring and Evaluation, Policy Analysis, and Quantitative research methods. He completed his doctoral studies in Economics from Institute of Social and Economic Change and joined Janaagraha in the year 2016. At Janaagraha, among many other projects that he headed one of the projects closest to him was the Jana Brown-Citizenship Index project which is a collaboration between Janaagraha and Brown University, USA. The project’s aim was to evaluate the quality of citizenship in urban centres through the lens of knowledge, participation, and engagement and estimate its impact on the quality of public service delivery. He has widely published in the area of urban governance, voter list management, civic learning, trade competitiveness, and Industrial economics. At present, Dr. Tarun Arora is Associate Professor, Economics at Department of Professional Studies of Christ (deemed-to-be) University, Bengaluru.
PR Devi Prasad
ADVISOR
He was the Founding Director of Fiscal Policy Institute, Bengaluru, Government of Karnataka and had served as Advisor to Executive Director at the International Monetary Fund, Washington DC. He has been delivering lectures on fiscal policy, budget management, macroeconomic management, public policy, public financial management, military budget, and right to information at several institutions such as ASCI, Hyderabad; IIPA, New Delhi; IIM Lucknow and Bangalore; Indian Business School, Bangalore and Gurgaon; National Institute of Financial Management, Faridabad; Administrative Training Institute, Mysore; NIT Warangal; Centre for Land Warfare Studies, New Delhi
Dr. Vijay Sakhuja
HON. DISTINGUISHED FELLOW
Dr Vijay Sakhuja is former Director, National Maritime Foundation, New Delhi. A former Indian Navy officer, Vijay Sakhuja received MPhil and PhD degrees from the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. He has published over 40 books, edited volumes and monographs, and specializes in issues of national security and public policy, particularly in the context of ocean affairs, geopolitics, Climate Change, Arctic, Blue Economy and 4th Industrial Revolution Technologies.
Ajit Mani
Senior Fellow (Policy Research and Training)
Ajit Mani (b.1947) has an unusual breadth of professional experience, most of it in rural India and the unorganised urban sector. His experience includes survey research, quantitative and qualitative research methods, and Development Communications, developed over several assignments. Ajit Mani worked for Malayalam Plantations (UK) Ltd from 1967 to 1979. He developed perspectives on poverty, survival, exploitation and governance during an unemployed “Walkabout” period (1980‐82), when he lived with tribals in the Silent Valley, Palakkad district, Kerala, and fisherfolk in Pamban Island, Ramnad district, Tamilnadu. He competed for the CAT exam in 1982 and joined the PGDM Programme at IIM Bangalore with a specialisation in Agriculture and Rural Development. Ajit Mani was a Field Director of ACTIONAID (UK) from 1986‐1989. A full‐time assignment as head of Social Marketing with an advertising agency, SISTA’S PRIVATE LIMITED, has provided familiarity with the presentation and communication of Development and Public Systems issues, in various situations and media. Ajit Mani has assisted in the development of formal Strategic Plans of several NGOs, INGOs, Multilaterals, Bilaterals, and Government agencies. Ajit Mani was a guest faculty at the Kalinga School of Rural Management (KSRM), Bhubaneswar from 2008 to 2018. He was invited by NLSUI, Bangalore to teach a 20‐hour course, “DATA ANALYTICS FOR PUBLIC INTERVENTIONS” for II Year Master of Public Policy (MPP) students (Dec 2019‐Jan 2020). Ajit Mani cleared the Certified Management Consultant (Process 8) of the Institute of Management Consultants of India (IMCI) on 10 May 2006.
Vice Admiral M P Muralidharan, retired in Feb 2013 as the 19th Director General of the Indian Coast Guard. A specialist in Navigation and Direction and a Post Graduate in Defence Studies, the Admiral in a career of close to four decades in the Indian Navy, has held several key Operational and Staff appointments including command of three warships. As Flag Officer he commanded Maharashtra and Gujarat Naval Area, was the first Commandant of the Indian Naval Academy and Chief of Personnel of the Navy.
Dr RP Pradhan
DISTINGUISHED FELLOW (POLITICAL ECONOMY)
Dr RP Pradhan is an Professor at the Dept. of Humanities & Social Sciences, BITS Pilani, KK Birla Goa Campus. He is a PhD in International Relations and largely works on Political Economy. His current teaching and research focus involves International Relations; Migration & Labour Market; International Trade & Development; Development Economics; Maritime Studies & Blue Economy.
V Muraleedharan Nair
SENIOR FELLOW
Muraleedharan Nair has held various positions in the Government of India, including as the Indian Consul in China. His postings abroad include those in the Indian diplomatic missions in China (Shanghai & Guangzhou), Hong Kong and Singapore.
Dr Jose Sebastian
SENIOR FELLOW (FINANCE)
Dr Jose Sebastian is Chairman and Director of Institute for Enterprise Culture & Entrepreneurship Development, Thiruvananthapuram. He retired as Senior Faculty in Public Finance from Gulati Institute of Finance and Taxation. An expert in Public Finance and Taxation, Dr Jose Sebastian writes for Economic and Political Weekly, IUP Journal of Public Finance, Asian Economic Review, among other well-known journals and magazines
Raj Cherubal
ADVISOR (SPECIAL), URBAN GOVERNANCE & CITY DEVELOPMENT
Raj Cherubal is the CEO, Chennai Smart City Limited. He is also Director-Projects for Chennai City Connect (CCC). At CCC, he has facilitated various projects on traffic, sustainable transportation and urban planning focused on pedestrians and pedestrianisation, Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) and integrated, multi-modal public transportation, sustainable solid waste management, restoration of urban water bodies, sustainable financing of urban infrastructure, redevelopment of business district and regional planning. He has written and worked to promote decentralisation and good urban governance. Also to promote economic freedom for entrepreneurs, especially poor like street vendors and others in the informal sector and for their recognition as profit seeking entrepreneurs. He holds an MS in Physics from the University of Louisville and an MS in Nuclear Engineering from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He has worked in the software industry in areas like computational physics, visualisation, telecom and finance.
Madhu Sivaraman
RESEARCH SCHOLAR
Madhu Sivaraman is a Research Scholar at CPPR and had earlier worked as the Centre Director (Research and Projects). He has been associated with CPPR for more than 10 years in a multi-disciplinary role engaging in projects spanning areas of transport, education, livelihood, dispute resolution, regulations and governance. With a background in law, Madhu was instrumental in developing policy strategies for local and state governments and supporting key initiatives of CPPR
