India Economic Forum & LITFest 2022

Devaki Jain earned his PhD in Economics from the University of Virginia, and his BA from Franklin and Marshall College. Before his PhD, he was a management consultant with Charles River Associates in Washington DC and Oliver Wyman in Boston. Professor Jain teaches the core course on Microeconomics and an elective in Health Economics in the MBA program at IIM Ahmedabad, as well as a PhD elective on Organizational Economics. At the ISB, he taught courses in Managerial Economics and Information Economics. He has written several Harvard Business case studies that are used by universities around the world. Devaki Jain, Honorary Fellow St. Anne’s College, Oxford University, is the founder and former Director of the Institute of Social Studies Trust New Delhi, India. She was previously a lecturer at the University of Delhi, a founding member of Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN), member of the South Commission (chaired by Julius Nyerere), and of the U.N. Eminent Persons Group concerned with child soldiers. She has an honorary doctorate from the University of Westville in Durban, Republic of South Africa and has held fellowships at Harvard and Sussex Universities. She has also been a member of State Planning boards and many of Government of India’s special committee related to gender and its inclusion. She has written several books related to women’s role in national and international progress. Her most recent works are the two volumes of her Selected Works called Journey of a Southern Feminist and Close Encounters of Another Kind: Women and Development Economics. She had been awarded Padma Bhushan by the Government of India in 2006 for her contribution to social justice and the empowerment of women. She has also published her Memoirs, The Brass Notebook in 2020. She is the recipient of the Bradford Morse Memorial Award (1995) from the UNDP at the Beijing World Conference.

Aaliya Waziri is a lawyer at the Delhi High Court, India and currently works as International Consultant for UN Women office for Timor Leste. Prior this this she worked for over a year with the UN Women India Country Office as National Consultant on Normative Frameworks, Intergovernmental processes and Women, Peace and Security, and also as a Legal Researcher cum Law Clerk for Hon’ble Mr. Justice Yogesh Khanna at the High Court of Delhi, India. Waziri serves as Consulting Editor for Grin Media Pvt. Ltd where she oversees an entire section of news on gender and policy. She often writes on the intersection of law and gender with an emphasis on gender justice and the Sustainable Development Goals. In her articles she talks about a range of topics including financing support infrastructure for Fast Track Courts, recognising unpaid care work, working within the interna-tional Margin of Appreciation to gain cultural legitimacy in human rights and strengthening environmental protection laws in India. Waziri completed her graduation in B.A. Philosophy (Hons.) from Hindu College, Delhi University after which she went on to pursue her LL.B. from O.P. Jindal Global University.

Yamini Aiyar is the President and Chief Executive of CPR. Her research interests are in the field of social policy and development. In 2008, Yamini founded the Accountability Initiative at CPR. Under her leadership, the Accountability Initiative has produced significant research in the areas of governance, state capacity and social policy. It pioneered a new approach to tracking public expenditures for social policy programs and is widely recognized for running the country’s largest expenditure-tracking survey in elementary education.

Shrayana Bhattacharya is a Senior Economist in the World Bank’s Social Protection and Jobs Practice for South Asia. In her present role, she leads the Bank’s development policy dialogue and projects with state and central government agencies in India on social protection measures and cash transfers. Prior to the World Bank, she worked with SEWA Union, Centre for Policy Research and ILO. She has completed her post-graduation in development economics at Delhi University and Harvard University. Her debut book ‘Desperately Seeking Shah Rukh: India’s Lonely Young Women and the Search for Intimacy and Independence’ was released in November 2021.

Manu S Pillai (PhD & Post Doctorate) is the author of several award-winning books. Formerly Chief of Staff to Dr. Shashi Tharoor MP, he has in the past worked at the House of Lords in Britain, with Lord Karan Bilimoria CBE DL, and with the BBC on their Incarnations history series, assisting Dr Sunil Khilnani. Written over six years and researched in three continents, Manu’s first book, The Ivory Throne won the 2016 Tata Lit Live Prize for best first work of non-fiction and the 2017 Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar. For three years, Manu also wrote a weekly column for Mint Lounge. His other writings have appeared in The Hindu, Open Magazine, the Times of India, Hindustan Times, The New Statesman, and other publications.

Rosa Abraham is Assistant Professor at the the Centre for Sustainable Employment (CSE) at Azim Premji University. Her doctoral research focused on forms of informal labour in India, examining the rise of informalisation in the formal/organised sector and the consequent impacts on productivity and inequality. She is an author and contributor to the annual State of Working India reports published by CSE. Her interests include labour and development economics particularly issues relating to women’s work, measurement of work and the changing nature of informal work. She is a nominated member of the Kerala State Planning Board Working Group on Women and Employment.

Tarun Jain is an Associate Professor of Economics at the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad. Previously, he was on the faculty at the Indian School of Business. His research focuses on understanding the causes and consequences of human capital formation (for instance, with education and health), especially in the context of fast-growing developing countries. Gender is a topic of special research interest given that women face persistent barriers to economic advancement. His research has received funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the International Growth Centre, and the International Initiative for Impact Evaluation, and has been published in peer-reviewed journals such as the American Economic Review, the Review of Economics and Statistics, and the Journal of Public Economics. He has written for media outlets such as The Economic Times, New Indian Express, Ideas for India, The Hindu, and Mint, and has been a speaker for TEDx IIM Ahmedabad.

Varsha Adusumilli graduated from BITS, Pilani with a degree in Information Systems. She began her career at an American financial services company but left within a few months to immerse herself in the world of startups. In her previous role, she set up a USD 10 million seed fund called Kstart for Kalaari Capital (one of India’s leading venture capital firms), which focuses on investing in disruptive technology startups. Over a two-year period, Kstart has invested in over a dozen innovative new companies. Prior to this, she was the founding Vice President at a leading digital media company, where she started and scaled many new initiatives from scratch alongside running business and client servicing operations. She is the author of the book, Wonder Girls, published by Delhi-based Juggernaut Books. Varsha started Wonder Girls, a nationwide initiative, which aims to introduce relatable female role models to adolescents in safe environments. The group’s flagship Fellowship programme is the first-of-its-kind platform in India that nurtures and develops adolescent girls into confident leaders for tomorrow

Dr Deepali Pant Joshi is a development economist who served the RBI for 36 years. She was closely associated with policy formulation in the area of rural credit. She was elevated as Executive Director in 2013 and held charge of the Rural Credit, Consumer Protection, Righto To information, Legal and Currency portfolios. She is passionate about the need for strengthening grass root level institutions, and on issues of equity and gender. She has made significant contributions in these areas. She has also written and lectured extensively. She was the RBI nominee on the G-20 Committee on Financial Inclusion. She has a continuing engagement with these issues. She has six books on Poverty and Sustainable development, on Financial Inclusion, Microfinance for Macro change and the one closest to her heart on corporate Governance and Gender Leadership, Dare to Lead

Rohan Kochhar holds an MPA in Public Administration and Management from University College London (UCL) and a B.A. (H) Economics from Delhi University. During his time at UCL, he also received an unconditional offer to pursue a PhD in Political Science under the tutelage of the Director, School of Public Policy and Head of Department, Political Science, University College London. He was UCL’s official nominee for the inaugural cohort of UNLEASH – A Global Innovation Lab for SDGs in Copenhagen funded by Carlsberg Foundation.