Prof. Aditya Bhattacharjea

Prof and HOD (Economics) - DSE

Prof. Aditya Bhattacharjea is presently, Professor and Head of the Department of Economics at the Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi, India. He was educated at St Stephen’s College, University of Delhi; Jawaharlal Nehru University; the University of Cambridge, and Boston University, from where he obtained his Ph.D. degree. He earlier taught for many years at St Stephen’s College, Delhi, and has been a visiting associate professor at Duke University, USA. His research interests include trade policy under imperfect competition, labour market regulation, and competition (antitrust) law and policy.

Professor Bhattacharjea served as a member of the Expert Group on Trade and Competition Policy, Ministry of Commerce, Government of India, was a resource person for the Competition Policy and Government Procurement sessions of the annual WTO Regional Trade Policy Courses for the Asia/Pacific region, conducted at Hong Kong University and then at the National University of Singapore. He served as a member of the Board of Directors of the Export-Import Bank of India from 2012 to 2015, and has served on the Standing Committee on Industrial Statistics of the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation since 2012. He is a member of the Governing Bodies of the Institute of Economic Growth and the Agro-Economic Research Centre, University of Delhi, and the Editorial Boards of the journals Indian Economic Review, Journal of Economic Studies and Planning, and Indian Journal of Economics.

Prof. Alakh Sharma

Director – Institute for Human development, New Delhi

Alakh N. Sharma is currently Professor and Director of the Institute for Human Development (IHD), New Delhi. Earlier, he has worked in the capacity of Senior Visiting Fellow, Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi; Advisor (Research), V.V. Giri National Labour Institute, Noida; Professor, Shri Ram Centre for Industrial Relations, New Delhi; and a Faculty Member, A.N. Sinha Institute of Social Studies, Patna, for several years. He has made significant contributions to research in varied areas such as livelihoods, poverty, employment, labour markets and related issues.

Prof. Arup Mitra

Professor (Economics)- Institute of Economic Growth

Arup Mitra currently works at the Department of Economics, Institute of Economic Growth. Arup does research in Development Economics, Labour Issues. Urban Development, Industrialisation and Productivity, and Gender Inequality. His most recent publication is 'City size, deprivation and other indicators of development: Evidence from India', which appeared in World Development.

Prof. Elisabetta Magnani

Prof of Economics at Macquarie University

Elisabetta Magnani is Professor of Economics at Macquarie University, Australia. She holds a doctorate from Yale University and is an expert in global labour issues, particularly, the interface between firms’ financial conditions on the one hand and employment and wages on the other. She has worked extensively in Labour Economics and on issues of technological, demographic and organisational change.

Dr. Jaiveer Singh

Prior to joining the Centre for the Study of Law and Governance, Jaivir Singh taught in the Department of Economics, Kirori Mal College, University of Delhi. His current research interests are centred on institutional economics, law & economics and constitutional political economy. He has published articles on the economics of labour law, competition policy, regulation, legal procedure, judicial activism and separation of powers.

Prof. Jeemol Unni

Professor – Amrut Mody School of Management, Ahmedabad

Jeemol Unni is Professor of Economics at Amrut Mody School of Management, Ahmedabad University, Ahmedabad. Currently, she is Chair of the Master of Arts in Economics Programme. Before joining Ahmedabad University she was the Director of the Institute of Rural Management, Anand (IRMA) and RBI Chair Professor of Economics at IRMA.

Ms. Leonie Nagarajan

Director (Education Dept.) – ASEF

Ms Leonie NAGARAJAN has been working in the field of international relations for over 15 years. As the Director of the Education Department at the Asia-Europe Foundation (ASEF), she is responsible for a programme portfolio that covers 51 countries across Asia and Europe with a focus on education policies, higher education cooperation, lifelong learning as well as experiential learning and skills development for young people. In her previous role as Chief of Staff, she advised ASEF Executive Directors on the foundation’s long-range strategy and operations. Ms NAGARAJAN earlier worked in Public Affairs and the media, including the House of World Cultures in Berlin, the newspapers Berliner Zeitung and Pretoria News and the Icelandic national broadcaster RÚV. Having studied in Berlin and Reykjavik, she received her MA in Communication Sciences with minors in Cultural and Political Sciences from the Free University and Humboldt University of Berlin.

Mr. Mahesh Vyas

MD and CEO – CMIE

Mr. Mahesh Vyas is Managing Director and CEO of Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy Pvt Ltd. He is the chief architect of CMIE’s proprietary databases. He created the Consumer Pyramids database by setting up the largest, fastest and technologically the most advanced household survey in India. Besides other applications of this database, he initiated and created the first set of fast frequency macroeconomic indicators (unemployment and consumer sentiments), from a private agency in India. Mahesh writes Consumer Life, a weekly (every Tuesday) column for Business Standard.

Dr. Radhicka Kapoor

Senior Fellow

India Council for Research on International Economics (ICRIER)

Dr. Radhicka Kapoor has served as consultant in various international organizations such as World Bank (Washington) and International Labor Organization (Geneva) and with the Planning Commission of the Government of India (in 2011-13 on the XIIth Five Year Plan) prior to joining ICRIER in 2013.

Dr. Kapoor holds two master degrees in Economics from the University of Cambridge and London School of Economics respectively prior to earning her Ph.D. in Economics from LSE in 2011.

Prof.Pramod N Junankar

Research Fellow

University of New South Wales

P.N. (Raja) Junankar is Honorary Professor at the University of New South Wales and Professor Emeritus at the University of Western Sydney. He completed his Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Essex and has held research and teaching positions at the Universities of Durham, Essex, and Warwick in the UK previously.

He has been a consultant for various governmental bodies including the European Commission, the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), International Labour Organisation and Economic Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UN) among others. Current research interests are in the field of labour economics (especially unemployment and long term unemployment), immigration, informal labour markets in developing countries, and macroeconomics. 

Dr. Rajat Kathuria

Director – ICRIER

Dr. Rajat Kathuria is Director and Chief Executive at Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER), New Delhi. Sir has over 20 years’ of experience in teaching and 10 years’ of experience in economic policy, besides research interests on a range of issues relating to regulation and competition policy. Sir worked with Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) during its first eight years (1998-2006) and gained hands on experience with telecom regulation in an environment changing rapidly towards competition.

Prof. Ravi Srivastava

Professor at JNU

Ravi Srivastava is former Professor of Economics and Chairperson, Centre for the Study of Regional Development, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi and full-time Member of the National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector (NCEUS), chaired by late Dr. Arjun Sengupta, in the rank of Secretary, Government of India (2006-09).

He is a recipient of numerous awards and scholarships including the Commonwealth and the Fulbright Fellowship; the University Grant Commission’s award in economics (2001) for innovative research on poverty, combining qualitative and quantitative methodologies; and more recently, the V. V. Giri Memorial Award (2009) for contribution to research on labour migration. His main areas of research and publication include labour and employment, migration, social protection, agriculture, rural development and rural poverty, the informal sector, regional development, decentralization, human development, and land reforms.

Mr. Suresh Krishna

Mr. Suresh Krishna is the Co-founder and CEO of Yunus Social Business Fund Bengaluru and Co-founder and Partner of Yunus Social Business India Initiatives. Prior to this, he was at the helm of affairs at Grameen Koota, since its inception in 1999 as Managing Director (till July 2015). He was instrumental in developing Grameen Koota into a large, socially responsible MFI having its outreach in 5 states of India. He has co-founded the microfinance industry associations, namely Microfinance Institutions Network and Association of Karnataka Microfinance Institutions. He has played a very active role in developing the microfinance sector in India. He has also co-founded Grameen Affordable Shelters P. Ltd – a company which develops affordable housing for the low income households along with Mrs. Vinatha M. Reddy – Founder of Grameen Koota. He is the Managing Trustee of Navya Disha Trust, an NGO working to improve water, sanitation, financial literacy, supplementary education for school children. He currently serves on the board of BinaArtha – an MFI in Indonesia, Mifos.org in USA – an open source core banking software for financial services, SAS Health Care P. Ltd. – an affordable healthcare company for the low income households. Mr. Suresh is a regular speaker and presenter at various national and international forums. He is passionate about agriculture, social businesses including micro housing, financial literacy, client education, renewable energy, waste management, health care and livelihoods for the poor.

Ms. Shilpa Pophale

Associated with Electronica Finance Limited (EFL) since 1995, Ms. Shilpa Pophale joined the company as a Management Trainee in 1994 and has grown up the ranks by working across various functions including Finance, Marketing, Credit, Collections and Accounts. She took over the day-to-day management of the company in 2005 when she became the Chief Executive Officer and was appointed as the Managing Director of EFL in 2007. Ms. Pophale built upon the strong legacy of EFL and its commitment towards the MSME sector, through her passion, customer centric approach & vision of “Creating success stories for Businesses”. She holds Harvard Business School’s 2-year Leadership Program, ISB Venture Capitalist Development Program and a Master of Science Degree from Pune University. In 2014, The World Women Leadership Congress conferred upon her the title of ‘Woman Entrepreneur of the Year’.

Prof. Santosh Mehrotra

Professor of Economics, Centre for Informal Sector and Labour Studies, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University

He was Director-General, Institute of Applied Manpower Research, Planning Commission (in the rank of Secretary, Government of India) (2009-2014).

He is a human development economist, whose research and writings have had most influence in the areas of labour/ employment, skill development, child poverty, and the economics of education. He brings a combination of professional experience: with the Indian government as a policy maker and adviser, with international organisations as a technical expert, having lived on three continents and travelled to 63 countries providing technical advice to governments; and as an academic whose research work has been translated into Chinese, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and German.

Dr S Mehrotra has an MA in Economics from the New School for Social Research, New School University, New York (1981), and Phd in Economics in Cambridge (1985).

Prof. Rakesh Basant

M. Phil., Ph.D. (Economics)

Dean, Alumni and External Relations (AER), Professor of Economics and JSW Professor of Innovation and Public Policy at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. Current teaching and research interests focus on firm strategy, innovation, intellectual property rights, entrepreneurial business models, public policy & regulation. Recent research has focused on capability building processes in industrial clusters, Foreign Direct Investment in R&D, innovation-internationalization linkages, competition policy, inter-organizational linkages for technology development (especially academia-industry relationships), incubation models in higher education institutions, emerging entrepreneurial patterns and eco-system in India, strategic and policy aspects of intellectual property rights, linkages between public policy and technological change, economics of strategy, the small scale sector in India and policy issues in higher education. Sectoral focus of the research in the aforementioned areas has been on Pharmaceutical, IT, Electronics and Auto-component industries. Was a member of the Indian Prime Minister’s High-Level Committee (also known as Sachar Committee) that wrote a report on the Social, Economic and Educational Conditions of Muslims in India. In continuation of this work, part of current research focuses on issues relating to Muslims, especially affirmative action in higher education. He has taught at Universities abroad and worked as a consultant to several international organizations.

Dr. Sunil Mani

Dr Mani is Chair Professor, NITI Aayog unit on Planning and Development at the Centre for Development Studies (CDS), Trivandrum.. Formerly, he was a member of the faculty and head of graduate studies at the United Nations University-Institute for New Technologies (now known as UNU-MERIT) at Maastricht in the Netherlands He obtained his M. Phil and Ph.D. in Economics from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi and has done postdoctoral research at the University of Oxford on a fellowship from the Ford Foundation, New York. He is also currently serving as a member of the international advisory steering committee to Centre for Science, Technology and Innovation Indicators (CeSTII) of the Human Sciences Research Council of Republic of South Africa and the National Science, Technology and Innovation Policy office, Thailand. Dr. Mani has published extensively in his area of specialisation in the form of 8 books, and several articles in refereed international and national journals and chapters in books. His latest (2017) book is with Franco Malerba and Pamela Adams, Rise to Market Leadership, New Leading Firms from Emerging Countries, Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, Mass, USA: Edward Elgar.

Mr. Clement Chauvet

Clement Chauvet is currently Chief, Skills and Business Development, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). At UNDP, he manages the IKEA Foundation funded project "Disha: Creating Employment and Entrepreneurship Opportunities for Women in India" that aims to improve the lives of one million Indian women and girls by creating scalable models at key stages in the value chain to enable women to learn marketable skills, connect to jobs or start their own enterprises. Clement is working to position the Disha project as a catalyst in the skilling eco-system, bringing together diverse partners including government, businesses, academia, training institutions, and civil society. Prior to his assignment with UNDP, Clement worked as a Regional Resource Mobilization and Partnership Adviser for UNFPA Eastern Europe and Central Asia based in Istanbul from 2013 to 2015. Before that, he worked at UNICEF India from 2008 to 2013 as Resource Mobilization Chief, based in New Delhi. He also worked as a Fundraising Manager for UNICEF in Manila, Philippines and Paris, France. He started his career in the development sector as a project coordinator for a credit and saving cooperative network in the suburbs of Manila in 2002. Clement holds an MBA in International Economics from Hautes Etudes Commerciales (HEC), France..

Dr.Ajit K. Ghose

Ajit K. Ghose holds a Ph. D. in Economics from the University of Cambridge (UK). He worked as a Research Fellow at Queen Elizabeth House (Oxford, UK) before joining the International Labour Organisation (ILO) as a research economist at its Headquarters in Geneva (Switzerland) in 1979. He retired from the post of a Senior Economist at the ILO (Geneva) in 2008. During 2009-10, he was Visiting Senior Fellow at Wolfson College, Cambridge (UK) and at the Centre for Development Studies, University of Cambridge (UK) where he taught a course for M. Phil in Development Studies. During 2015-2017, he was ICSSR National Fellow. Currently, he is Honorary Professor, Institute for Human Development, New Delhi (India). He has authored several books and many articles in professional journals, in areas such as agrarian transformation, globalisation, inequality, economic growth and development, employment and labour markets, and poverty and famines.

Prof. Ramakrishnan Raman

Prof. Ramakrishnan Raman PhD, MBA, M.Phil, PGDSM, BE Professor and Director, Symbiosis Institute of Business Management – Pune Dean – Faculty of Management - SIU

Ramakrishnan Raman earned his Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science and Engineering from University of Madras, India. He continued with graduate studies to earn his M.B.A (Systems and Marketing) from the same University. Later he obtained a P.G.D.S.M. and M.Phil in Management from Pondicherry University and Alagappa University respectively and then completed his

doctoral degree in management discipline from Pune University. He is also a Six Sigma Green Belt and Six Sigma Black Belt Certified. He completed his Green IT Consultant certification at Foundation Level by ISEB and BCS. His passion for adding value made him take up certifications from Universities Abroad. Raman has more than Fifteen years of total work experience, which is a blend of corporate, academic and research experience. His professional career in dealer chain management started with a large organization, Godrej and Boyce Manufacturing Co Ltd, in Chennai, India. He then moved into consulting domain by joining the Leading Edge consulting services. He returned to an academic life to satisfy his passion for teaching by joining Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT) as a lecturer in Department of

Management Studies. After spending a couple of years with VIT, Prof. Raman joined Kohinoor Group in their Business School named Kohinoor Business School (KBS), located at Khandala. KBS was offering the business management program of Carleton University Sprott School of Business Ottawa Canada. During his long stint with Kohinoor Group he had strategized and headed ERP implementation for the group’s education division named Joshi’s Kohinoor Technical Institute (JKTI). After he spent eight years with the Kohinoor Group he joined SP Jain Institute of Management (SPJIMR), Mumbai campus. After a short stint at SJIMR he joined Symbiosis International University (SIU). He severed as Director – SCIT (A constituent of SIU under faculty of Computer Studies) for three and half years and then in July 2014 took charge as Director – SIBM (A constituent of SIU under faculty of Management). He is also the Dean – Faculty of Management at Symbiosis International University.

Raman has travelled across the globe and has been instrumental in initiating academic collaborations with universities in Japan, Canada, UAE and the United States. He has also presented several papers in international conferences across the globe and also has published papers in refereed Scopus listed journals. His main research interest is at the interface of Information Systems, Information Security, IT Strategy and Marketing.

Prof. Smita Srinivas

Prof. Smita Srinivas's research focuses on economic development, technological learning, innovation, and industrial policy. Her theory-methods analyse gaps between microeconomics, evolutionary economics and political economy. Her empirical work draws from cross-industry, product, process analysis in oil & gas, health, food/agriculture, waste, energy, and human health-environment areas. Srinivas's Ph.D. from MIT focused on microeconomics, political economy, and institutional analysis in industrial and technology policy, and built on prior mathematics and physics training. This experience has resulted in over two decades working as senior economic expert and development advisor, high-level reviewer, consultant, or strategy advisor in diverse contexts on five continents. She assists a range of stakeholders including international development agencies, private firms, governments, community, and grassroots organisations. She has held several advisory and leadership posts in higher education's global expansion and curricular reform, with expertise combining economics and science-technology-engineering in.

realistic development plans.

Srinivas’s book Market Menagerie: Health and Development in Late Industrial States (Stanford University Press, 2012) was awarded the 2015 biennial Myrdal Prize from the European Association for Evolutionary Political Economy (EAEPE). Market Menagerie has been the basis for several policy and theory discussions worldwide and Srinivas is currently part of the global management team and India PI on a £700,000 ESRC Open University-led grant on cancer care and the health industry in the UK, India, Kenya, and Tanzania.

Srinivas has advised several Ph.D. students and over 40 M.S. theses. She has been faculty member and Founder Director of the Technological Change Lab, Columbia University, Honorary Professor at the Department of Science, Technology, Engineering and Public Policy (STEaPP) at University College London, Visiting Professor, Economics Department and the Innovation, Knowledge, Development (IKD) Centre, The Open University, UK, Honorary Professor at the Indian Council for Research on International

Economic Relations, (ICRIER), Senior Visiting Fellow at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), Professorial Associate at Innogen, an ESRC Centre for research on Genomics (Edinburgh and Open University), Visiting Scientist at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Visiting Fellow at the Institute for Biotech and Bioinformatics (IBAB), and Research Affiliate at MIT's Industrial Performance Center.. She has held several pre-doctoral and Post-doctoral Fellowships in Science, Technology, and Public Policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School, Prof. Srinivas is a Committee Member for the State Action Plan, SDG Goal 5, Government of Karnataka and Technical Expert of the Karnataka Evaluation Authority. She has been Co-Chair of the Human Settlements Committee for the Aga Khan University Global Thinking Group in East Africa, and Member, Urban Strategy and Innovation Council (USIC) of Engie (France), one of the world’s largest energy firms. Her work has been recognized among others, by the UK Economic and Social Research Council, Columbia University Global Centres and Brazilian government, by the World Cities Summit, The Institute for New Economic Thought, the Indian Council for Social Science Research, WHO, Ford Foundation, and is recipient of MIT, Columbia, and Harvard University grants and fellowships.

Mr Janak Nabar

Mr Janak Nabar "Janak is CEO of the Centre for Technology, Innovation and Economic Research (CTIER) and has been leading CTIER’s research efforts. He is a member of the CII National Committee on Technology and has been part of working groups constituted by NITI Aayog to rank national R&D laboratories and develop the India Innovation Index. Janak has previously worked as an Economist and Investment Strategist in the private sector in Singapore. His experience also includes two years with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Belgrade, Serbia. Besides his research interest in innovation and technology policy, Janak also researches and writes on India’s macroeconomic policies.

He holds an MSc in Econometrics and Mathematical Economics from the London School of Economics and Political Science, MA (Mathematics) from Balliol College, University of Oxford (as a Radhakrishnan Scholar), and BA (Mathematics) from the University of Pune (ranked first in the university)."

Mr Pradeep Bhargava

Mr Pradeep Bhargava has been an Independent Director at Persistent Systems since April 2012. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Science (Honors) from Rajasthan University, Jaipur; B.E. in Electronics and Communication from the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru and MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.

Pradeep has long experience in both state and private enterprises in fields ranging from consumer, industrial and energy sectors. He has worked with the Atomic Energy Commission, BHEL, Bharat Forge Group and General Electric before joining Cummins in 2000. He steered the power generation business of Cummins in India.

Pradeep is on the Board of several companies including Cummins India, Torrent Pharmaceuticals and Rajkumar Forge. He has been active on industry forums and was Chairman (Western Region) of the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII). He is also a Trustee of Persistent Foundation formed by Persistent Systems.

Pradeep is engaged in various agenda of Civic Society like Skill Development , Employability, Women Empowerment, Environment (GreenCo). He conceived & steered “Pune Power Model”, Leading to Zero Load Shedding in city of Pune. He is also associated with leading Academic Institutions like IIMs (Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Indore, Udaipur); Symbiosis. Independent Director on Board of Leading Corporates. Trustee at KEM Hospital, Pune; Science Technology Park; Lila Poonawala Foundation. President, Maharatta Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture (MCCIA), Pune (2018-2020). President, Employee Federation of India (EFI) (2016-2018). Chairman, CII, Western Region (2013-2014).

Mr Bhargava has completed his B.Sc. Honors from Rajasthan University, Jaipur, B.E. from Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore and M.B.A. from IIM, Ahmedabad. He has worked for Government of India for a Decade under departments like Atomic Energy Commission, Electronics Commission, BHEL. he was also a consultant to UNDP & World Bank for 15 months. Business Leadership role in Consumer & Industrial Corporate Sector (3 Decades). Sharp, G.E. Lighting, Bharat Forge, Cummins. Active in Industry Forums.

Ms Akanksha Sharma

Akanksha Sharma is an internationally acclaimed CSR & Sustainability Intrapreneur. She is a ‘Global Shaper of the World Economic Forum’, Writer and TEDx Speaker.

She is a notable voice in the socio-economic development space and is noted amongst '100 Most Impactful CSR Leaders Globally' by World CSR Congress; 'Asia’s Top Sustainability Superwomen List of Honour' by CSRWorks International; ‘Young CSR Leader’ by India CSR and is also conferred with the “Sustainability Leadership Award” by World Sustainability Forum.

Akanksha has been working at Leadership roles with various large MNCs for over a decade now leading change for development through CSR, Sustainability, Social Entrepreneurship & Impact Investments. She currently heads CSR and Sustainability for Sterlite Technologies and has worked with UNICEF and other large MNCs in the past. Her role with the corporates is to advise Boards on Responsible Business and Impact Investments through Sustainability & CSR along with developing organizational approaches to establish strategic partnerships and institutional engagements for development. She has successfully led notable development initiatives on SDGs in various geographies of Asia with large fund base along with developing organizational capabilities and engagements for growth.

Over the years, she has also been building valuable alliances for development ranging across public, private, NGOs and civil societies helping the organizations leverage the policy context governing the contribution of the private sector to development through CSR, Social Entrepreneurship, Impact Investing & Strategic Philanthropy. After completing her Master’s in Business Administration, Akanksha has done her specialization from Harvard Business School in Social and Environmental Business Management.

Akanksha is a member of notable national/ international CSR and Sustainability Policy Making Forums of the UN, CII and others. She has been advocating for integrating CSR with SDGs with the UN and the Government. Akanksha is a regular writer for Forbes, Times of India, Economic Times, Huffington Post and Dailyo (India Today) amongst many others. She is also a published author of a fiction anthology and writes a Peace Series for Dawn on India-Pakistan. She is also a “Peace Ambassador” of an international organization, Postcards for Peace, a UK based organization.

In addition to this, Akanksha is a “Global Climate Force Ambassador” and was chosen to represent India on “International Expedition on Climate Change at Antarctica” in 2017.

Her vision is to promote a better understanding of responsible businesses practices and its contribution towards sustainable development. She has been a notable speaker at various national and internal forums on CSR, Sustainability, Responsible Businesses, Social Entrepreneurship, Impact Investing & Strategic Philanthropy.

Prof K.R. Shyam Sundar

K.R. Shyam Sundar is working as Professor, Human Resources Management Area, at the Xavier Labour Relations Institute (XLRI), Xavier Business School in Jamshedpur, India. He holds a Ph.D. Degree in Economics from Mumbai University. He has published over 75 research articles and book reviews and 13 books (of which three of them are as an editor) in the field of Industrial Relations and Labour Economics. Currently he is editing two books scheduled to be published by Palgrave Macmillan in May-June 2019. He has written extensively on contemporary issues in industrial relations and labour markets in India in the leading business newspapers and e-outlets in India.

He has done research projects for organizations like the International Labour Organization (both New Delhi and Geneva offices), the European Union, Global Union Federation, Indian Council of Social Science Research and so on. He has been a Visiting Fellow at the International Institute of Labour Studies, International Labour Office, Geneva, during October-November 2006. He has completed several research projects on topics such as Labour Regulation and Social Dialogue sponsored by agencies like the European Union and the International Labour Office. He has visited China in 2008 to study the issues of Labour Flexibility and Labour Law Reforms in China under the Cultural Exchange Programme of academics between India and China. He was invited by the ILO to make a Special Presentation on Contract Labour in India at a special tripartite meeting organized in November 2009 at ILO Geneva office in Geneva in commemoration of 50 years of adoption of the ILO Conventions on Freedom of Association and Collective Bargaining. He was invited to make a Special Presentation on Labour Law Administration in India at a Meeting of Experts held in Turin, ILO Office in December 2013. He is actively associated with the Indian Society of Labour Economics and has been a member of its Executive Committee for many years. He is the member of the Editorial Board of the Indian Journal of Labour Economics, Indian Society of Labour Economics, New Delhi and Amity Journal of Economics, Amity University. He is a Life Member and holds important consulting position in the Indian Industrial Relations Association, New Delhi.

Dr. Rahul Suresh Sapkal

Dr. Rahul Suresh Sapkal is an Assistant Professor (Economics and Public Policy) at National Law University Mumbai. He holds PhD degree in Law and Economics, Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands and Master’s Degree in Development Studies from Tata Institute of Social Sciences Mumbai. He works in the areas of Applied Econometrics, Economics of Inequality, Theory of Firm, Labor Economics, Law and Economics, Industrial Relations, Development Economics, Microeconometrics, and Institutional Economics. Currently, Dr. Sapkal is a visiting research fellow at Rotterdam Institute of Law and Economics, The Netherlands for the academic year 2018-19 (summer).

Prior to joining MNLU Mumbai, he has worked as a researcher with CORD-UNICEF; International Labor Organization, New Delhi and Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. He has widely published and is a referee to various international economic journals of repute such as European Journal of Law and Economics, The Journal of International Trade & Economic Development, Labour and Industry: A journal of the social and economic relations of work, Economic and Political Weekly, Research in Sociology of Work, Benchmarking: An International Journal, and Asian Journal of Law and Economics.

He is a member of editorial board of Workers Solidarity Network (WSN) of Action Aid (India) and Decent Work Agenda of RILES, The Netherlands. He has been awarded the Reserve Bank of India, Faculty Research Fellowship – 2017-18 for the project title, “Financial Development, Labour & Product Market Regulation and Firm Performance: The Story of India” and Azim Premji Research Grant 2018-19 for the project titled, “Judicial Quality, Contract Enforcement and the Firm Performance: Empirical Evidence from India”. Recently, he has submitted a research report titled, “Analysis of Amendments in the Child & Adolescent Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act of 2016: Evidences from Indian Case Laws”, to CRY India.

Prof Arjun Panchal

Prof Arjun Panchal Arjun is an entrepreneur, professor, author and a motivational speaker. Arjun is a mentor for Entrepreneurship at SIBM, Pune. He is also being called as panellist/judge at various seminars at other management institutes.

Arjun hailing from Nagda MP, after high school, did his engineering from Indore and pursued MBA from the University of Massachusetts, Boston. Post MBA, he worked with an esteemed organisation ESRI in Los Angles. However, after staying in US for 5 years, his cherished dream was always to be an entrepreneur for which he turned down a big permanent offer in the same company and returned back to India to make way of his own in 2015. In Pune, he started Mexican Restaurant chain along with his schoolmate Vikas Vohra by the name “PapaZapata”, which has expanded to 4 outlets in the span of 3 years, and plan to increase further.

Arjun has recently written a book “What Happens in America” portraying a story about a middle class boy who aspires to chase his dreams from a small town to US and his diverse experiences w.r.t. the change in culture, relationships, struggle and fun. It is for all the students who aspire to go to US for higher studies and who are already there. And also for those who dream big but are in dilemma, how to make big and choose right steps.