Qualifications: Post Graduate Diploma in Management equivalent to Masters in Business Administration

Areas of interest:

1. Organizational Sociology

2. Anthropology of the State

3. Sociology of Education

4. Development Studies

Accomplishments:

Academic

Additional research funding secured

Funding from the International Development Research Center, Ottawa, Canada, the Human Development and Capability Association, Harvard’s Global Equity Initiative, and Sanskriti Pratishthan, India (50,000 INR) for research on the topic: Agency in the context of decentralization of education: policy prescriptions and subjective realities. Period: June 2005 to March 2006.

Workshop and seminar presentation

• Presented paper titled Agency in the Context of Decentralization of Education: Policy Prescriptions and Subjective Realities at a workshop on ‘Individual Agency or Empowerment: A New Measure?’ in Centre for Development Studies, Thiruvananthapuram, India, April, 2006.

• Presented paper titled Rethinking Quality within the context of Bureaucratic Practices and Neoliberalism at a seminar on ‘Universalising Elementary Education in India’ in the Institute for Human Development, Delhi, India, June, 2006.

Institutional and project related

• Was responsible for co-coordinating the organization of a state level seminar on Karnataka’s Elementary Education System: Experiences, Achievements and Future Challenges as part of the project in NIAS, October 2006.

Current Activities:

• Project responsibilities as a team-member of the District Quality Education Project, NIAS

• Fulfilling Ph.D. programme requirements as a doctoral student in NIAS

Courses Taken:

Foundation, Research Methodology, Philosophy of Science, Sociology of Education, Cognition, Culture and Capitalism, Anthropological Perspectives on Development, Social Theory Guided Reading Course, Anthropological Theories and Methods

Publications:

• Changing Mindsets about Quality based on presentation of the paper Rethinking Quality within the context of Bureaucratic Practices and Neoliberalism. Status: reviewed and due for publication in IHD, Delhi edited volume.

• In the Margins of the State. Review of Anthropology in the Margins of the State edited by Veena Das and Deborah Poole. Economic and Political Weekly August 12, 2006. pp. 3510-11.

• Review of Education and Decentralization: a Case Study of India’s Kerala State by M.V. Mukundan. Journal of Educational Planning and Administration July 2005, Vol 19: 3. pp. 441-3.

Non Academic Interests:

Hindustani classical music, Cinema.