Public Policy Forum & LITFest 2021

Ms Bhuvana Anand is the Co-Founder and Director of Trayas, a knowledge-driven public purpose enterprise. She has 16+ years experience in public policy research, and has worked extensively alongside government and civil society partners on creating an enabling environment for enterprises, regulatory simplification, and reforming welfare programmes. She is former Director, Research at the Centre for Civil Society, one of India’s leading think tanks. She led the thinking and execution of multiple high-visibility research publications including 100 Laws for Repeal, Doing Business in Delhi amongst others.

5F World is a platform for Digital Start-ups, Skills and Social Ventures in the country. He is also Co-Founder of Global Talent Track, Skills Alpha and Lighthouse Communities Foundation and two Indo-US Joint Ventures – Kalzoom Advisors and the Center for AI and Advanced Analytics. He also serves on the Boards of Principal Asset Management, Hinduja Global Solutions, Educate Girls, Asian Venture Philanthropy Network, Singapore, Systech Inc and Social Venture Partners (SVP) International, USA.

Dr Gursharan Dhanjal , MA, MPhil, PhD from Delhi University and an expert in strategic affairs, is Managing Director & Editor, SKOCH Group. He is also Editor of INCLUSION—a quarterly publication that focuses on development and addresses inclusive growth-related issues. INCLUSION has completed six years. He has over 20 years of work experience ranging from academics to research and business journalism to consulting. He started his career as an Assistant Professor and taught at Delhi University for five years before joining Asia Business News (India)—Dow Jones, a premier broadcaster of business and financial news during the mid-90s. He also worked for CNBC for over three years during the late 90s.

He has led various research projects, impact assessments and field studies in financial inclusion, e-governance and ICT for development that included traversing across the country, collecting citizen voices for over a decade now. His areas of expertise include research and rich media content. A prolific writer, Dr Dhanjal has contributed over 200 columns in leading national dailies including The Hindustan Times, The Times of India, The Financial Express and The Pioneer. He has published research papers in several journals of repute in addition to authoring a widely acclaimed book entitled Tarapur: The Politics of Nuclear Age. He has recently published another book in association with Sameer Kochhar entitled Infrastructure and Governance. He has contributed papers that have been published in various books, e.g., Growth and Governance: Essays in Honour of Nandan Nilekani; An Agenda for India’s Growth: Essays in Honour of P Chidambaram; Policymaking for Indian Planning: Essays in Honour of Montek Singh Ahluwalia, edited by Sameer Kochhar; and, Building from the Bottom: Infrastructure and Poverty Alleviation, edited by Sameer Kochhar and M Ramachandran. He is a member of the Working Group on ICT in Higher Education constituted by Planning Commission for the 12th Five Year Plan. He is a regular speaker at various public fora and institutions including IIT-Delhi and Delhi University where he is also a visiting faculty. He is Member, Course Preparation Team for Master’s Programme, School of Social Sciences, Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU). His research interests include nuclear non-proliferation, political systems, ICT for development, financial inclusion, education, public administration, urban development, conflict resolution and peace building.

Dr Ajit Ranade earlier served as an Executive Officer of Financial Technologies India Ltd. and Chief Economist at ABN AMRO Bank. His professional career has spanned academic and corporate assignments, including teaching in universities in India and U.S. Dr. Ranade serves as a Director on the Board of Hindalco Almex Aerospace Limited, a joint venture company of Hindalco and Almex Inc. of USA. He has served on various committees of the Reserve Bank of India, most recently in the committee for Fuller Capital Account Convertibility.

Saibal Dasgupta, China Correspondent, The Times of India & Author of Running with the Dragon

Dr. Niranjan Sahoo is a Senior Fellow at Observer Research Foundation, a leading think tank in New Delhi. With years of expertise in governance and public policy, Dr Sahoo now leads studies and programmes on governance, democracy, electoral reforms, conflicts and insurgencies and human rights among other. A recipient of Ford Asia Fellowship (2009) and Sir Ratan Tata Fellow (2010), Dr Sahoo currently serves a member for the Carnegie Rising Democracies Network, Washington, D.C. He serves a regional democracy expert advisor to Freedom House, USA and Asia Democracy Research Network, Seoul. His forthcoming book is on Funding India’s Democracy by Routeldge, London. His work on polarisation in India (titled “Hindu Nationalism and rising political polarisation in India”) was recently published by The Brookings Press, USA. Most recent long paper was on “The West wanes, China grows: What’s at stake for the Liberal Order? ORF Occasional Paper, March 30, 2021.

Ayjaz Wani is a Research Fellow at ORF Mumbai. He is currently working on the project: “Kashmir Conflict, Managing Perceptions and Prospectus for Peace.” Designed in the form of questionnaires and surveys with key stakeholders, the project is based on the Kashmiri youth perspective.

Wani also tracks the minorities of China (Uyghur); radicalisation in Pakistan; and greater Central Asia. He is widely published in international and national peer reviewed journals.

He has received fellowships from Xinjiang Social Science Academy in Urumchi, Xinjiang; and the University Grants Commission (UGC), New Delhi. Wani is also a EUCAIS fellow where he undertook a two-year programme — “The European Union and Central Asia in the International System.”

Dr Sudipto Mundle is a Senior Adviser at NCAER. Formerly, he was an Emeritus Professor at the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy, New Delhi. He serves on several corporate and other boards. He was also a member of the Fourteenth Finance Commission, the erstwhile Monetary Policy Advisory Committee of the RBI and the National Statistical Commission, where he also acted as Chairman.

He spent much of his career at the Asian Development Bank, Manila, from where he retired as a Director in the Strategy and Policy Department in 2008. In his earlier career in India he served in several academic institutions including the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, the Centre for Development Studies, Trivandrum, and NIPFP, New Delhi, where he was the Reserve Bank Chair Professor.

Dr Priyanka Pandit is a China Studies Post-Doctoral Research Fellow supported by Ashoka University (India) and Harvard Yenching Institute (USA) at the Department of International Relations and Governance Studies, Shiv Nadar University. She holds M.Phil and Ph.D.in Chinese Studies from the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University and Masters in East Asian Studies from the University of Delhi. She was formerly Research Fellow at the Indian Council of World Affairs (ICWA). She has taught at the Yunnan University of Finance and Economics, where she also pursued an intensive year-long course in Mandarin. She is currently completing her book project on China’s negotiating strategies at the World Trade Organisation.