Devaki Jain is an Indian economist and writer, who has worked mainly in the field of feminist economics. In 2006 she was awarded the Padma Bhushan, the third-highest civilian award from Government of India, for her contribution to social justice and the empowerment of women.
Rehman Sobhan is a Bangladeshi economist. Regarded as one of the country's top public thinkers, he is the founder of the Centre for Policy Dialogue. Sobhan is an icon of the Bangladeshi independence movement due to his role as a spokesman of the Provisional Government of Bangladesh in the United States during the Bangladesh Liberation War. He was awarded the Independence Day Award, Bangladesh's highest civilian honour, in 2008.
The Karan or Karana is a community found in the state of Odisha in India. The post of Karana used to be a professional designation that was occupied by literate peoples. They held Karanam posts in some parts of Andhra Pradesh, where they speak Odia and played a similar role in Odisha to that of the Kayasthas of West Bengal and Bihar. In the social hierarchy of Odisha they rank next to Brahmins. They exclusively served the ruling powers as their ministers, advisors, governors, military commanders, record keepers and dewans. They owned most Zamindaris in Odisha. They have the highest literacy caste-wise and are highly prosperous. Today they are a politically dominant community and have reigned over the politics of Odisha for 50 years.
The Economic and Political Weekly (EPW) is a weekly peer-reviewed academic journal covering all social sciences, and is published by the Sameeksha Trust. In January 2018, academic Gopal Guru was named the new Editor of the journal. Guru will be Editor for a period of five years. The previous full-time editor was Paranjoy Guha Thakurta. The Trust had earlier appointed Guha Thakurta as the new editor of the journal with effect from 1 April 2016. His appointment came at a time when many social scientists were opposing the supposed removal of the previous editor C. Rammanohar Reddy, who resigned in January 2016 only to controversially end in 2017 with Guha Thakurta also resigning.
Mihir Rakshit is an Indian economist, known for his work on fiscal, monetary and other policy, especially issues that concern developing economies. Originally from Chittagong, which is now in Bangladesh, he did his graduation from Presidency College, Calcutta, post-graduation from the University of Calcutta and his PhD from London School of Economics. He taught at the departments of Economics of The University of Calcutta, The University of Burdwan, Presidency College Calcutta, and Indian Statistical Institute Calcutta, as faculty. He also taught at Delhi School of Economics and Erasmus University Rotterdam, as visiting faculty. He served the Reserve Bank of India for two terms as a member of its Central Board of Directors. He was director of the open access quarterly journal Money and Finance published by ICRA Limited from 1997 to July 2016.
Subrata Kumar Mitra was director and research professor at the Institute for South Asian Studies at the National University of Singapore till May 20, 2018. Currently emeritus at the University of Heidelberg.
Hermann Kulke is a German historian and Indologist, who was professor of South and Southeast Asian history at the Department of History, Kiel University (1988–2003). After receiving his PhD in Indology from Freiburg University in 1967, he taught for 21 years at the South Asia Institute of Heidelberg University (SAI).
Ram Puniyani is an Indian author, a former professor of biomedical engineering and a senior medical officer affiliated with the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay. He began his medical career in 1973 and served at IIT in various capacities for 27 years, starting in 1977. He has been involved with human rights activities and initiatives to oppose Hindu fundamentalism in India. He is currently the President of the Executive Council of the Centre for Study of Society and Secularism (CSSS). He is also an advisory board member of the Muslim Mirror.
David Vumlallian Zou is a historian of modern South Asia with special interest in north-east India. His research interests reflect an interdisciplinary orientation that includes colonial history, book history, gender history, ethno-history, indigenous identities and historical geography.
Rajni Kothari was an Indian political scientist, political theorist, academic and writer. He was the founder of Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) in 1963, a social sciences and humanities research institute, based in Delhi and Lokayan, started in 1980 as a forum for interaction between activists and intellectuals. He was also associated with Indian Council of Social Science Research, International Foundation for Development Alternatives, and People's Union for Civil Liberties.
Tista Bagchi, Professor of Linguistics in the University of Delhi, is a distinguished Indian linguist and ethicist. Bagchi trained in Sanskrit College, Kolkata, the University of Delhi, and the University of Chicago, from where she obtained her PhD in Linguistics, her work spans issues of semantics and syntax in languages in general and South Asian languages in particular, questions of ethics in the application of medical technology and social interaction, and translations of iconic texts in Bangla literature and comparative philology. Bagchi has also been active in the area of cognitive sciences with special interests in the relationships amongst sentence structure, computation, linguistic meaning, and human cognition. Bagchi was the Robert F. & Margaret S. Goheen Fellow for the academic year 2001–2002 at the National Humanities Center, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, and a scientist under the CSIR Mobility Scheme at the National Institute of Science, Technology, and Development Studies, New Delhi, for two years during 2010–2012.
Valerian Rodrigues is an Indian political scientist. He is known for his influential work on Babasaheb Ambedkar, and for his formulations of themes in Modern Indian Political Thought. Rodrigues has made substantial contributions to the debate on the working of the Indian Parliament, constitutionalism in India, and agrarian politics in India. As a Professor at the Centre for Political Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi, he was popular for his lectures on Indian Political Thought and Intellectual History, and critically reading the same through political concepts of modernity, secularism and nationalism.
Krea University is an Indian State Private University located in Sri City, Andhra Pradesh focused on liberal arts, sciences and management. It was established in 2018 by a team of high-net-worth individuals and academicians including Raghuram Rajan, Sajjan Jindal, Anand Mahindra. The Institute for Financial Management and Research was incorporated under the aegis of university, which along with the School of Interwoven Arts and Sciences (SIAS) are the two schools housed in the campus.
Sanjay (Xonzoi) Barbora is an Associate Professor at University of California, Santa Cruz. Earlier he worked as professor at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences Guwahati and the former Dean of School of Social Sciences. He is on the editorial board of Refugee Watch. He is also on the board of trustees of The Kohima Institute.
Sudhir Krishnaswamy is an Indian academic, administrator, and civil society activist who is currently the Vice-Chancellor of the National Law School of India University (NLSIU) and is a co-founder of the not-for-profit research trust Centre for Law and Policy Research (CLPR). Krishnaswamy took over as VC of NLSIU from R. Venkata Rao in September 2019. Krishnaswamy is the first alumnus of NLSIU to be appointed as the VC of the institution. On 6 May 2020, Facebook appointed him to its content oversight board. He was awarded the Infosys Prize 2022 in the Humanities category, for his insightful understanding of the Indian Constitution.
Dwaipayan Bhattacharyya is an Indian political scientist. He is a professor at Centre for Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University.
Gopal Guru is an Indian political scientist. He is the editor of the journal Economic and Political Weekly. He is a retired professor in political science at Centre for Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University. He was a visiting professor at Columbia University, Oxford University and University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. Earlier, he taught at the University of Delhi and the University of Pune.
Niraja Gopal Jayal is an Indian political scientist, who works on issues concerning citizenship, representation, and democracy. She is currently a professor at both, King's College London and the London School of Economics, in the United Kingdom, and previously taught at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, India.
Dr. Ather Farouqui is a writer of unparalleled acclaim in Delhi. He is the General Secretary of Anjuman Taraqqi Urdu (Hind) and the Secretary of Zakir Hussain Study Circle. Farouqui has been awarded the Sahitya Academy Award for the translation of the play ‘Sons of Babur’ in Urdu. He has also been conferred with the ‘Best Translator’ award in 2016 by Delhi Urdu Academy.
Brahma Prakash Singh is a writer, cultural theorist, and assistant professor of theatre and performance studies at the School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India. He writes provocative essays on critical, poetic and art and culture.
