Sreetama Gupta

Sreetama Gupta Bhaya has been extensively working on issues of governance of natural resource, rights and livelihood - primarily with tribal communities. Having started her career
as a field practitioner, she has worked with national and international NGOs, research organisations, and also undertaken work on policy and advocacy related to tribal rights and livelihood. She has widely worked on issues of implementation of Forest Rights Act with the
Government and civil society groups. She has a post graduate degree in Social work.

Dr. Vincent Darlong

Dr Vincent Darlong is a former Vice Chancellor at MLCU. At present he is a team leader in the world bank funded biodiversity studies undertaken by MLCU and serving as a Director of Centre for Sustainable Development Studies.

ILDC 2022 Speakers

Mr. Dharm Raj Joshi

Mr. Dharm Raj Joshi (M.A.), a researcher and development worker with more than 8 years' work experience in Nepalese development sector. Currently, he is working as National Coordinator for ILC's National Engagement strategy (NES) in Nepal and facilitating the Multi-stakeholder Platform on People centered land governance called National Land Coalition (NLC) Nepal/ Land Governance Working Group - LGWG.

Previously, he served COLARP – a national level research-based organization as Executive Director. He has received national and international fellowships for policy research and professional courses for land governance

Dinesh Rabari

Dinesh Rabari is well known Pastoral Leader and a Social Activist in the province of Gujarat, India. He is a pastoralist and has always had a passion of working for Human Rights. In order to realize his vision, he has done undergraduation in Rural Development and Postgradutationin Development Management in 2001. Since then, from last 21 years, he has worked in different capacities on voicing the issues of marginalized communities and groups, such as, Dalits, Children, Women, Pastoralists, Physically Challenged, Tribals, Minorities, Landless and Single Women.

He has demonstrated great strength in community mobilizing, alliance building, developing leadership, bringing diverse stakeholders such as social, community, religious and political leaders at one platform and enabled their contribution for the cause. He is champion of pastoralists and Land issues. The clarity of his thoughts, self-confidence, his visioning for a better society has taken him to great heights in such a young age. He visionsfor a society where people are self-reliant and they adopt a sustainable pattern of lifestyle which has its roots in progressive traditional cultural practices, that is pro-nature and pro-environment.

Dr.M.Homayoun Ludin

I studied my MD in Nangarhar Medical Faculty, Afghanistan, and completed my )Master of Public health) MPH, Community medicine diploma and postgraduate Nutrition diploma in India and Indonesia, worked in the nutrition field for almost 17 years, I was Director of Public Nutrition and as Senior Nutrition advisor for MSH. Also worked as a Nutrition lecturer in medical facilities,

I am a member of below committees and boards:

National Pastorals committee

Food and Nutrition Agenda

CODEX

Health and agriculture high-level steering committee

Ms. Pawna Kumari

Belongs to the family of Pastoral community OBC family of Bara Bhangal area of Baijnath.
Professional weavers and tailor.
working as a state secretary of Himachal Ghumantu Pashupalak Mahasabha.
Working with local pastoral communities whose livelihood dependent on forests and common lands.
working on FRA 2006 since 2008 to establish pastoralists rights under the Forest Rights Act 2006. .
Experience of conducting training on FRA.
Experience of helping filing of community claims under FRA of 28 FRC,s of Multhan tehsil.
Working as an assistant with Indian Grassland and Fodder Development Institute Jhansi and with Rural Development Department Himachal Pradesh on scheme development of common grassland infested with weed through Employment Guarantee Scheme and Watershed Development Programmes.
Worked as a State Level Researcher in “Study on Pasture Commons and Community access, control and benefit over it” conducted by NR KAHub, Action aid, Bhubaneshwar Odissa in the six States of India.

Sujata Thakur

Sujata Thakur is an engineer with a Post Graduation in Construction and Project Management from CEPT University in 2001, she has trained herself to apply her knowledge in the development sector. She further pursued a PG course in Technology and Sustainable Development jointly conducted by IIT-Chennai and Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne which helped her connect her professional training to the humanitarian sector. She has a keen interest in documenting grassroot practices, conceptualising and designing interventions and analytical documentation. Earlier she started her career with international organisations like Oxfam and Care. During her 15 years of experience, she has worked as a full time employee as well as a consultant to various organisations. She supports the research and monitoring functions of the organisations and provides support across multiple areas of work in different states. She has been a member of multiple evaluations and assessments. She has been associated with MARAG since 2018. At present she is the Focal Person for SAPA where she is responsible for establishing cross learning and knowledge sharing across different members.

Astha Saxena

Astha is a legal researcher and a doctoral fellow at NALSAR University if Law, Hyderabad. She has authored "Land Law in India" Routledge 2020 and co-authored "Criminalisation of Adivasis and the Indian Legal System" IPRI 2022. Her work lies in the rights to property and land, laws of land reform, acquisition and the workings of Forest Rights Act, 2006. She also works with various groups of lawyers and social researchers to explore forest land jurisprudence and expand the boundaries of legal education. In her doctoral studies, she is examining the relevance of legislative paradigms towards the realisation of socio-economic rights.

Usha Ramanathan

Dr. Usha Ramanathan is an internationally recognized expert on law and poverty. She studied law at Madras University, the University of Nagpur, and Delhi University.

She is a research fellow at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, teaches environmental law, labour law and consumer law at the Indian Law Institute, and is a regular guest professor many universities around the world.

She is a frequent adviser to non-governmental organizations and international organizations. She is for instance a member of Amnesty International’s Advisory Panel on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights and has been called upon by the World Health Organisation as an expert on mental health on various occasions.

Dr. Ramanathan is also the South Asia Editor of the Law, Environment and Development Journal (LEAD Journal), a peer-reviewed academic journal jointly published by IELRC and SOAS.

Her research interests include human rights, displacement, torts, and the environment. She has published extensively in India and abroad. In particular, she has devoted her attention to a number of specific issues such as the Bhopal gas disaster, the Narmada valley dams or slum eviction in Delhi.

Rakshita Swamy

Rakshita Swamy is a public policy practitioner with over 13 years of experience in conceptualizing, demonstrating and institutionalizing mechanisms of social accountability in the delivery of schemes and functioning of public institutions. She is the founder and head of Social Accountability Form for Action and Research (SAFAR), where she along with her team work on building rule-based public accountability frameworks in collaboration with Governments and Civil Society Organizations.

Sanjoy Patnayak

Sanjoy has been engaged in rights-based work on natural resource management for close to three decades with core competency on policy research and advocacy action on land and forests. Sanjoy specialized on innovative programme planning and design on rural livelihoods – productive land use, land to the landless, forest produce marketing including inclusive and decentralized planning exercise as key components of empowered local governance system. At present Sanjoy is engaged as Strategic Policy Advocacy Adviser in Foundation for Ecological Security, and provides strategic guidance to elevate the debate on Commons and Climate Change. Prior to that Sanjoy served as the India Country Director, Landesa and designed a range of land rights programmes with special focus on land to landless and women’s land rights.

Akeina Gonmei

Mrs. Akeina Gonmei is a Secretary of Development Department, Rongmei Baptist Association Nagaland (RBAN) since 2000. She has been working in livelihood based community development with special emphasis on environment and community livelihood program through women SHGs, capacity building and empowerment.

She works actively for 'Naga Women Advocate for land Rights through Participation in Decision Making and a mentor for research program ‘land Rights and Development Justice’ (FPAR 2018-2020). Since 2019 she is serving as a Director Childline 1098 Peren District.

Deepak Sanan

Deepak Sanan retired from the Indian Administrative Service in 2017, where he was attached to the State of Himachal Pradesh. He held senior positions in public finance, land governance, and the water and sanitation sectors at both the State and national levels. He also had significant tenures in the health, urban development, and power sectors. Currently, he is an adviser for projects on water and sanitation and land governance at a number of institutions in India. He has been a Consultant with the World Bank, IFAD, DFID, IDS Sussex, and AusAid. He has also served as the India Country Team Leader in the Water and Sanitation Program (South Asia) at the World Bank.

He writes regularly on Centre-State relations, and has published extensively and presented papers on these issues at a number of conferences across India. He received his MA in Politics (International Relations) from the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, and BCom (Hons) from Delhi University.

Shomona Khanna

She is a litigating lawyer practicing in the Supreme Court of India and the Delhi High Court on a variety of rights related issues. Her main area of focus and interest is the rights of indigenous peoples, tribals and forest dwellers, over their traditional lands and resources, and the advancement of constitutional principles and jurisprudence around these rights. As part of her interest in the subject, she has also written extensively on rights of indigenous peoples, as also dalit rights and women's rights.

Dimgonglung Rongmei

Dimgonglung Rongmei is the Executive Director, Rongmei Naga Baptist Association (RNBA). RNBA is a non-profit, secular and non-governmental organization with a history of serving marginalized and vulnerable people of Manipur for 37 years. He has over 22 years of experience in sustainability and livelihood through Natural Resource Management in Northeast India. He is been involved in development sector (NGO) since 2000 as volunteer for 2 years. Served as Field Officer at Development & Relief Department, Rongmei Naga Baptist Association (RNBA) for 3 years in Longrang area of Tamenglong district, supported by Adheri Hilfe Bonn, Germany supported project. Take over People’s Endeavour for Social Change (PESCH) as Executive Director, since 2005 till 2015 (10 years).

He is a graduate in B.Sc. Botany from Manipur University, triple Diplomas in Sustainable Agriculture, Leadership and Computer Applications and obtained Master in Conflict Study from Paññāsāstra University of Cambodia. He holds Diploma in Development Leadership, Coady International Institute, StFX University, Antigonish, Canada and had exposed on

bamboo value chain analysis and bamboo sector development study at Hangzou and Anji province, China.

Holkhomang Haokip

Holkhomang Haokip is the Secretary of Rural Aid Service (RAS) Churachandpur, and a Director of Childline Churachandpur, Manipur. He is a graduate in History. He is an Executive member of Kuki chief association Manipur.

For last 27 years he is been associated with the organization in the field of community development in Churachandpur district. He received an award for selfless service to the people from Deputy Commissioner, Churachandpur on 15th August 2011. He has working experiences in the field of Natural Resource Management (NRM), Livelihood & Food Security, Child in need of care and protection, Peace Management, Relief & Rehabilitation, Community Development and building and Conflict Management.

Simon L. Hrangchal is the Director of Relief & Development Department Evangelical Assembly Church (EAC), Churachandpur. The department is the social concerned ministry of the Church. He completed Bachelor of Arts from Scottish Church College, Kolkata under Calcutta University, Kolkata, West-Bengal and Master of Arts in Rural Development (MARD) from Churachandpur Study Centre under Indira Gandhi National Open University, New-Delhi, India. Obtained Diploma in Development Leadership from Coady International Institute under St. Francis Xavier University, Antigonish, Nova Scotia, Canada.

Has experiences in working with integrated strategies for poverty alleviation, Food Security and Environment Development through Natural Resource Management (NRM) based activities of tribal people, Tribal Land Rights with the community for the past decade

7 years working experience with micro-finance program.

He had exposed to various trainings and workshops like Community transformation Course, Peace, Governance and Justice workshop, Logical framework analysis workshop, Financial Management Training, Pro-poor and gender, Institutional building, Micro Planning, PME and Project formulation, Livelihood Promotion, NE MF & Livelihood Summit, Development Consultation which includes regional, national and international experiences.

Simon L. Hrangchal

Prisca Gonmei is a Thematic Expert in Land Mapping and Land Tenure Documentation in RNBA, Manipur. She is a graduate in Social Work from College of Social Work Nirmala Niketan, University of Mumbai and obtained Master in Social Work from Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai. She has been engaging with different communities in the field of land and land mapping, since 2017.

Prisca Gonmei

Yingkongshon Shaiza is a Program Manager in RNBA, Manipur. At present she is leading a project; Inclusive Land Tenure Security and Ensured Sustainable Livelihood for Tribals and Minorities of Manipur. Prior to joining RNBA in 2018 she contributed as a Research Assistant for The Jurists, Delhi. She holds a Law degree from University Law College, Bangalore.

Yingkongshon Shaiza

Siddharth Edake is a Master's of Science (M.Sc.) in Biodiversity from Pune University and currently is a Senior Manager with the Sustainable Landscape Restoration program at World Resources Institute India. Here, he manages WRI led programmes on forest and landscape restoration that support enhancement of national carbon sinks and are a cost effective, natural climate change solutions. He has over 14 years of experience focusing on biodiversity assessments, carbon finance, commons governance, ecosystem service valuation and restoration of habitats in a span of 10 years. Siddharth is a former national badminton player, loves traveling, and enjoys wildlife photography.

Mr. Siddharth Edake

Mr Arun K Bansal has an experience of over 44 years in all aspects of conservation of forests, development of forest sector in the country including evolution of forest policy and legal framework, and international collaborations. He has been directly involved in evolution and implementation of national policy relating to forest conservation & management – sustainable forest management, forest certification, climate changes adaptation and mitigation– REDD+, forestry and forest product research & education. He has contributed to the evolution of JFM through his association with JICA assisted forest projects in the Country since 2006. A qualified International Lead Auditor for Forest Management Certification, he has worn many hats during this work tenure in the government and post his retirement as Addl. Director General of Forests, Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change.

Arun K Bansal

 Dr. Ruchika Singh leads the Sustainable Landscapes and Restoration programme at World Resources Institute India (WRI India). She provides strategic leadership, research guidance and develops institutional partnerships to mobilise action, support more robust monitoring and develop pathways to transition towards  sustainable food and land use systems in India. She brings almost two decades of extensive experience spread across grassroot level participatory programme implementation to policy research, strategy development and project management. Prior to working with WRI India, Ruchika has worked with World Bank, University of Massachusetts (UMass), Amherst, TERI School of Advanced Studies, The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), Development and Research Service (DRS), and Foundation for Ecological Security (FES).

Ruchika holds a PhD in Development Studies (magna cum laude) from the Center for Development Research (ZEF), University of Bonn. She also holds a double Masters in Politics from UMass, Amherst, and a Masters in Development Studies from the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS), The Hague part of the Erasmus University Rotterdam. She is an alumnus of Xavier Institute of Social Service and the Delhi University. She is recipient of several fellowship awards: NUFFIC Fellowship award for Masters in Development Studies at ISS; Graduate Assistantship Award for Masters in Political Science at UMass, Amherst; DAAD Doctoral fellowship at ZEF; Fieldwork research grant from Dr. Hermann Eiselen Ph.D. Grant from the Fiat Panis Foundation.

Dr. Ruchika Singh

Joanna Dawson is involved in developing strategy, publications and partnerships for the Balipara Foundation, to advance the organization’s vision and goals for the Eastern Himalayas. She brings an anthropological approach and experience in the development sector and marketing to the table to develop the organization’s human-centric conservation strategy & growth. Joanna is also involved in shaping the organization’s thought leadership and original material for the Foundation’s communications strategy & publications, including articles in regional & national publications. Her current projects include policy research and an index for social and ecological indicators to enhance impact monitoring. Her prior experience is in the development sector in India, and in marketing – communications, analysis and research, and she holds a Master’s degree in anthropology.

Ms. Joanna Dawson

Karishma has been an interdisciplinary researcher on agrarian distress specifically focusing on credit-debt relations and its linkages with environmental degradation, adaptive governance mechanisms for landscape restoration and tenure and resource rights. She has previously worked with WRI for over seven years in multiple capacities and was most recently engaged with the Sustainable Landscapes and Restoration program. Here, she conducted restoration opportunity assessments in the Sidhi district of Madhya Pradesh and co-developed the MAP Tenure platform to address the orange areas land conflict in central India. She would enrich ATREE with her experience in quantitative and qualitative analysis and participatory research techniques. She is proficient in partnership, network building and communications as well.

Karishma has done her graduation in Sociology and Economics from St Xavier’s College, Mumbai and holds a MA in Development Studies from the Institute of Social Studies, (ISS) part of Erasmus University in the Hague.

Ms. Karishma Shelar

Ishan Agrawal works with Foundation for Ecological Security, an NGO working for restoring fragile ecosystems in India through rural community centered efforts. He deeply believes in Commons and community's ability to act as stewards for conservation of natural resources. He worked for a decade around Kanha tiger reserve landscape especially on conservation aligned livelihoods for tribal communities. He is currently working with Commons Collaborative, an effort anchored in FES for building a coalition of actors in the country for realising the promise that commons hold for larger issues that country faces, like poverty, environmental degradation and gender disparities.

Ishan Agrawal

Namita Mishra, Post Graduate in Social Work and working on management and governance of natural resources for the last 25 years. Her work surrounds strengthening local governance institutions, capacity building, women leadership, decentralised planning and leveraging government schemes like MGNREGA for landscape restoration, stream rejuvenation and climate resilient livelihoods. She worked with various kinds of agencies: NGOs, bilateral, Corporate, namely GIZ, UNDP, PwC, IPE Global and State Rural Development Department, to name a few. As a state team lead for different programs, she has worked extensively with government departments and programs involving multiple stakeholders and coordinated projects at a scale. She has been nominated for state level committees formed by the Chhattisgarh government on CAMPA executive committee, agriculture and rural development task force and shared her work at India’s Pavilion in UNFCC’s COP 24. While in FES, she had worked both at grassroots and coordination level. She is PhD scholar of TISS and pursuing PhD (off campus) on Forest right act. She joined common's collaborative vertical in 2021 and presently leads the Chhattisgarh state team. At personal level, she actively follows her interest for regenerative farming and social movements.

Namita Mishra

Nandini Chami is a Deputy Director of IT for Change. She is keenly interested in issues of digital rights and development, with a strong focus on women’s rights in the information society. Nandini's work largely focuses on research and policy advocacy in the domains of digital rights and development, and the political economy of women’s rights in the information society She is part of the organisation’s advocacy efforts around the 2030 development agenda on issues of ‘data for development’ and digital technologies and gender justice. She also provides strategic support to IT for Change’s field centre, Prakriye. This includes training programmes for women’s rights groups on adopting digital tools in their field practice, and critical ‘education for empowerment’ for rural adolescent girls. She has a Master's in Urban and Rural Community Development from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai.

Nandini Chami

Pooja Chandran is a legal researcher with the Foundation for Ecological Security. Her work lies at the interface between environmental regulations, bio-cultural rights and critical legal empowerment, with a focus on improving transparency and social accountability for the effective governance of Commons. She's an environmental lawyer and was previously practicing law at the High Court of Delhi.

Pooja Chandran

Mr Pradeep Sharma Petroleum and Geoscience expert by education, Mr Pradeep Sharma has spent about 30 years in developing various models for just and sustainable society. He has played critical role in national and international level strategic alliance and people’s movement on water and environment issues. He is founder of Krishak Biradari, a farmer policy advocacy group in Chhattisgarh. As CEO of Sewa, he innovated low cost models of multi layered vegetable cropping system for round the year nutrition supply to an household. He is instrumental in designing and operationalising the Chhattisgarh Government’s flagship program Suraji Yojna, which is an integrated approach for restoration of commons like Naruwa (drainage system), Garuwa (Cattle system) and HH’s resource development practices like Ghuruva (Composting) and Badi (Homestead vegetable cultivation). His pioneer work on Godhan Nayay Yojna has been appreciated by state and central government. He is presently working on Rural Industrial Park (RIPA), a state initiative for revival of rural economy and creating local job for youth and women based on Gadhian’s philosophy.

Pradeep Sharma

Vaishnavi Rathore is a Climate and Land reporter with Scroll.in where she covers long-form stories for their segment, “Common Ground.” Prior to this, Vaishnavi led the environment vertical for The Bastion, a young development journalism platform. Before stepping into journalism, she worked on Forest Rights Act, 2006 in Himachal Pradesh with Himdhara Environment Collective, and local decision making with Foundation for Ecological Security, Gujarat.

Vaishnavi has also been a recipient of the Laadli Media and Advertising Award, 2022, and Prem Bhatia for environmental and developmental reporting, 2021. She has also received various national and international fellowships to support her on-ground journalism.

Vaishnavi Rathore

M. S. Shivakumar, social activist and researcher, has more than 30 years’ experience working on land and natural resource issues in Southeast and South Asia. He has worked with different bilateral and multilateral organisations including the World Bank, UN-FAO, UNDP, and others. He has advised the Governments of Vietnam and Myanmar on enhancing land governance, on drafting land law, and on forest tenure issues. He is currently based in Bengaluru, India.

MS Shivakumar

Dr L.S. Ghandi Doss, retired Professor of Social Work at Bangalore University and Central University of Jammu. He also served as the Executive Director of the Bangalore Urban Poverty Alleviation Programme (BUPP) which was a government initiative of the Government of India and Government of Karnataka in collaboration with the Netherlands Embassy in India. Currently, he is the National President of the India Network of Professional Social Workers’ Associations (INPSWA) and also lead the Institute for Youth and Development, a NGO based in Bengaluru.

Ghandi doss

Dr. Ruth Manorama is a well-known Social and Political Activist and a Feminist. She was a student of the Madras University and we are proud to say , she is an alumnus of the Department of Social Work, batch of 1975 – 77 MA Social Work and a parent of one of our former students. She holds numerous positions and is currently the National President of the National Alliance of Women (NAWO), National Convener of the National Federation of Dalit Women and General Secretary of Women’s Voice, Karnataka. She is also the Advisor and founder of Karnataka Gruha Karmikara Sangha, the first Trade Union registered in the country for domestic workers and Vice President of National Centre for Labour (NCL) for the unorganized sector. With an illustrious career spanning four decades, she has been actively involved in educating, organizing and mobilizing women, Dalits, urban poor and the unorganized sector from the grass-root to the National levels. She has been an advocate standing with the people in their struggle for Human rights, championing their cause to end discrimination and deprivation. Her passion, lobbying and negotiation skills have earned her positions as a member of several commission and committees such as Member, National Commission on Population, chaired by the Hon’ble Prime Minister of India. Member, National Advisory Council, Right to Education (RTE). Member, National Standing Committee for Women Scientists, Union Ministry of Science and Technology.

Dr Ruth Manorama

With over 28 years of experience, Amy is a results-oriented, mission-driven executive leader with a proven record of significantly growing organizations. Amy comes to Cadasta from the National Cooperative Business Association, CLUSA International (NCBA CLUSA) where she served as the Chief Operating Officer of International Programs from 2011 to 2018. In this role, she oversaw a team of over 800 staff and a near tripling of the portfolio in 20 countries across Africa, Latin America, and Asia working in resilience, food security, and rural development.

Prior to her work at NCBA CLUSA, Amy worked as the Deputy Executive Director of the Pan American Development Foundation; the Deputy Director of the Americas Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies; Washington Director of the Center for Occupational Research and Development; and as the Vice President for North America for the International Vocational Education and Training Association (IVETA). She currently serves on the board of Interaction, the premier alliance of International NGOs working in humanitarian assistance and development.

Amy Coughenour

Dr. Chamundeeswari Kuppuswamy

Dr. Chamundeeswari Kuppuswamy is Senior Lecturer at the School of Law, and University Research Theme Champion for Global Economy at the Office of the Vice-Chancellor, University of Hertfordshire. Research interests include the law of global commons, commons, Research based teaching and output aimed at building knowlegde in the area, as well as feeding into policy making, particularly at the international level via reports to international organisations.

Dr Moatoshi Ao

Dr. Moatoshi Ao is an Assistant Professor in Faculty of Law, University of Delhi. He graduated in law from Govt. Law College, Mumbai. He holds LL.M degree from the University of Mumbai and Ph.D from the University of Delhi. Before joining the University of Delhi, he was associated with Singhania & Co. LL.P., Mumbai during his legal practice in the High Court of Bombay. He has also taught LL.B students in Rizvi Law College, Mumbai, simultaneously during his practice. Dr. Ao has authored various articles in renowned journals and magazines.

Mrs Irwin Lalmuanpuii Hnamte

Mrs Irwin Lalmuanpuii Hnamte, completed her MPhil from The Indian Law Institute (Deemed University). And now working as a Assistant Professor Department of Law, University of Delhi. Mrs Irwin has a expertise in

Master of Laws (LL.M) with Specialisation in International Trade Law and Intellectual Property Rights.

Pravin Kumar

Indian Administrative Officer Praveen was born and brought up in Jamui, Bihar. He did his high schooling at Ramakrishna Vivekananda Vidya Mandir school. He completed his B.Tech in Civil Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur in the year 2017. In 2018 he secured All India Rank 5 in the Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE) exam, in the same year he achieved All India Rank 3 in Indian Engineering Services (ESE) 2018. He worked in the Indian Railway services before appearing for the Civil Service examination.

At present Sri. Pravin Kumar IAS takes charge as Commissioner and Director of Municipal Administration.

Siddharth Jain

Siddharth Jain secured all India rank 13 in Civil services and the same rank in Indian Forest Service. He had done mechanical engineering from IIT Roorkee. Shri Siddharth Jain IAS (Andhra Pradesh 2001) presently Inspector General, Stamps & Registrations, has been transferred and posted as Commissioner, Survey & Settlement, Govt of Andhra Pradesh.

Dr Kundan Kumar

Dr. Kundan Kumar is a researcher and advocate for Rights Based Approaches to Climate Justice and Conservation. He has experience as a researcher/teacher (University of Toronto); in international NGOs (Rights and Resources Initiative, Washington, DC) and as a social movement activist for indigenous and community rights in India. He has supported Indigenous Peoples and local communities across the Asia Region in their efforts for recognition of collective resource rights over their lands and territories. His current interests are in Indigenous Peoples’ Collective Rights over territories and natural resources and their intersections with conservation, climate change and ecological restoration.

Sushmita Verma

Sushmita is a researcher, an award winning journalist and a former engineer. She is currently working to expand on the ideas of an equitable climate action model. Her issues of interest are climate change, just transition, forest rights, environment, agriculture and gender based issues. She has taught modules on climate change and public and mental health to Masters students of TISS. She researched and reported extensively on impact of COVID-19 on forest dwelling communities, and policy measures at the time. In 2020, she was selected for Earth Journalism Network’s Asia Pacific story grant for critical reporting on environmental crime, wildlife issues, climate change and their intersections with social and economic issues in the background of the Covid-19 pandemic. Her writings have been published in reputed Indian and international publications like The Caravan, The New Indian Express, Down to Earth, The Wire, The Thirdpole, Mongabay etc. Her upcoming writings on climate change and intersections with livelihoods is expected in Lexington Books, while her writings on COVID-19 are expected in The Hindu Public Policy Centre and Routledge.

Tushar Dash

Tushar Dash is a researcher working on forest rights and governance issues in India. He is associated with national initiatives of civil society organisations working for the implementation of Community Forest Rights provisions of the Forest Rights Act. He is also associated with organizations of pastoral communities supporting their work on forest rights for pastoral communities. He has conducted several training programs on FRA organized by the Ministry of Tribal Affairs for the state governments as well as learning workshops for the civil society organizations, development agencies and academic institutions. He has served in committees and policy forums set up by the central and state governments, and has written extensively on the implementation of FRA.

Narayana A

A.Narayana, an associate professor in the School of Policy and Governance, Azim Premji University, Bangalore, has over two decades of experience in the media, academics and consultancy. He holds a doctorate from the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), University of Sussex for his thesis on Information and Communication Technology-based Reforms in Land Governance. He was the Karnataka State Coordinator for the World Bank’s Land Governance Assessment Framework Project. He was a consultant for the Karnataka Government’s High-Power Committee on Restructuring the Governance of Bangalore City. He was a member of the technical committee constituted by the Election Commission of India to promote electoral literacy in India. Earlier, he also worked as a journalist in Bangalore-based English daily Deccan Herald. He writes in both English and Kannada newspapers and magazines on issues of politics, political economy and governance

Anaclaudia Rossbach

Anacláudia Rossbach is an economist with more than 20 years of experience working on issues such as precarious settlements, informality, social housing, and land and urban policy. She has worked on projects such as designing one of the world’s most significant municipal-level slum-upgrade programs, in São Paulo, Brazil. She was the founding director of an NGO that developed high-impact projects in informal communities in the state of São Paulo and the city of Recife, Brazil. Later, she served as a senior housing specialist for the World Bank in Brazil and internationally. In that role, she served as a high-level consultant and provided technical assistance to the develop and implement Brazilian housing and slum-upgrading policies, including the Growth Acceleration Program for Favelas and the housing subsidies program Minha Casa, Minha Vida (“My House, My Life”). From 2014 to 2022, she worked for the Cities Alliance, serving as the regional manager for Latin America and the Caribbean. In that role, she supported communities of practice, promoted the transfer and exchange of knowledge, and provided advisory services on housing and urban policies in the global south. In addition, from 2020 to 2021, she led the organization’s Global Programme on Informality, a response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Zanofer Ismalebbe

Mr. Zanofer Ismalebbe is the Chief of Knowledge Management at the UN Office for South-South Cooperation (UNOSSC) Headquarters in New York. He possesses over 22 years of global, regional and country level development, humanitarian, conflict, post-conflict and human rights policy and programme leadership, diplomacy, representation, partnerships, and coordination.

Until recently, he served as the UNOSSC Regional Chief - Division for Arabs States, Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States (Istanbul), and led a wide range of strategic and catalytic policy, research and partnerships initiatives aimed at regionalizing UNOSSC’s global and UN system-wide mandates as well as supporting country level priorities, in collaboration with regional and sub-regional institutions, regional UN entities, national institutions, Resident Coordinator Offices and UN Country Teams, and other stakeholders in the two regions. Prior to this, he served as the Team Leader - Intergovernmental Engagement and Team Leader ad interim - UN System Affairs Group in the Bureau of External Relations and Advocacy (UNDP Headquarters, New York); Senior Policy Specialist - Executive Office of the UN Secretary-General (New York); Policy Advisor and Global Programme Manager (UNDP Geneva); Human Rights Development Officer (UN Resident Coordinator System, Tashkent); Programme Officer (UNDP Tashkent); Programme Officer – Children Affected by Armed Conflict (UNICEF Colombo); and Legal Consultant (UNHCR London and Colombo). He has also worked as a Researcher at the Law and Society Trust (Colombo).

He is a lawyer by training with a Master of Law (LL.M.) from the University of Essex, UK, where he was a ‘Chevening Scholar’ of the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and a Master of Public Policy (MPP) from the University of Massachusetts, USA. He has also completed several leadership and managerial learning initiatives through the Kellogg School of Management (Northwestern University); Ross School of Business (University of Michigan); Harvard Business School; and the UN System Staff College

Jolyne Sanjak

Dr. Jolyne Sanjak is Senior Director of Global Programs, Landesa. Dr. Sanjak has more than 25 years of experience in the land tenure sector, and previously served as Chief Program Officer at Landesa and Deputy Vice President, Sector Operations at the Millenium Challenge Corporation. She also served as the lead US Representative in the VGGT negotiations.

She is an experienced leader, manager and technical expert. Skilled in sustainable development, rural and urban land governance, monitoring and evaluation and other areas of international development. Has engaged in international development from academic, public sector, non-profit and private sector consulting practices. Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) focused in Agricultural Economics and International Development from University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Nivedita Haran

Dr. Nivedita P. Haran Graduated with Economics and Philosophy (Hons), obtained Masters in Philosophy from Jadavpur University and PhD in Sociology from IIT, Delhi.

She joined the Indian Administrative Service in 1980 and worked in the state of Kerala and in Govt of India in various departments that include departments of Land Revenue, Disaster Management, Agriculture, Industries, Labour & Employment, Planning and Home apart from serving as District Collector/ Magistrate. She was Director and later Joint Secretary in Ministry of Urban Development, Govt of India. She was on deputation to the UN Peacekeeping Mission in Kosovo for 5 years.

Post-retirement she has been engaged in activities related to research and academics in the areas of Digitisation of Land Records, Disaster Resilience-building, Good Governance, , Labour & Migration issues and management of Water, Waste Water and solid waste. She is a member of the Court-appointed Committee of Experts for cleaning up and conservation of the Dal Lake and the committee related to modernization of land records in Delhi. She is also the chairperson of the Centre for Migration and Inclusive Development and Ente Bhoomi Trust. She has been a regular speaker at various training Institutes including the Civil services training academy at Mussoorie.

Pranab Choudhury

Mr. Pranab Ranjan Choudhury is an expert with more than 20 years of experience in Natural Resources Management and Governance in India and abroad. He has founded and coordinates NRMC Center for land Governance, a think tank attempting inclusive and informed dialogue around land governance in India for shared prosperity. A post-graduate in Forestry, Mr. Pranab has earlier worked as a Scientist with Indian Council of Agriculture Research (ICAR) for about 8 years. He has coordinated implementation of LGAF for World Bank in India and has carried out studies on women land rights, forest rights and land governance with international agencies. He has also worked closely with Govt. Departments across hierarchies (primarily with land use and land administrative departments including Revenue, Forest, Water, and Agriculture etc.), with International and National Donors, NGOs and CBOs in many states of India. His past/ongoing clients/partners include the Donors (The World Bank, UNDP, DFID, JBIC, JICA, EED/BfW etc.), Consultancy Firms (NR International, Pragmatix etc.), State Govts (Odisha, Gujarat, Bihar, UP etc.), International Research Institutes (ICRISAT, ICRAF), INGOs (Caritas, RDI-Landesa) and NGOs. He is well versed with the legal-institutional frameworks and stakeholders (in Govt, Academics and NGO sector) around land and land-use sector in India.

Ana María Santofimio

She is a sociologist and journalist and holds a master’s degree in Human Rights from the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences (FLACSO - Mexico). She has extensive experience in designing and implementing large-scale citizen participation methodologies and gender and ethnic inclusion in processes related to land tenure, cadaster, alternative conflict resolution mechanisms, armed conflict, and human rights. Currently she works at the Geographical Institution Agustin Codazzi (IGAC in Spanish) where she leads the social and participation component for cadaster.

Gustavo Marulanda

He is a public administrator with experience in finances and management of territorial institutions and has worked in the public sector as director of cadaster in Bogotá and the National Planning Office (DNP in spanish) among others. He holds a master’s degree in territorial institution management and has been a consultant for the World Bank. He is Currently the head of Geographical Institution Agustin Codazzi (IGAC) and leads the cadaster registration in Colombia.

Bryan Triana Ancinez

Bryan Triana Ancinez Lawyer from Universidad del Rosario (Colombia). Master’s degree Student in administrative law with emphasis on public law at Universidad Externado de Colombia. Researcher at the Observatorio de Tierras in the project Legal institutions, armed conflict, and agrarian inequality. He works on topics related to drug economies, agrarian justice, judges, and land titling programs.

Margarita Varon

Margarita Varón Founder and Chief Executive Officer - CEO - of Colombia Rural. Company dedicated to rural land management, land governance and land administration. Formerly member of the Colombian Government team for Land Restitution Public Policy design. Executive Director of Land Tenure at the Ministry of Agriculture in Colombia; Led the Formalization Program. Consultant for the Rural Mission. Advisor of the Presidency for the peace agreements implementation concerning land tenure. Lawyer and LLM at Los Andes University, Bogotá, Colombia.

Rocio del Pilar Peña Huertas

Rocío del Pilar Peña Huertas Lawyer, specialist in Tax Law and Doctor of Law from Rosario University (Colombia). Currently she works as academic coordinator of the Observatorio de Tierras (land observatory), as a research professor, as editor of the Estudios Socio-Jurídicos journal and as part of the Derecho Público Research Group of El Rosario University, she has worked on issues concerning public policy, transitional justice, legal mechanisms to guarantee Human Rights of displaced population in Colombia, negotiation and conflict.

Abhijeet Parmar

Abhijeet Parmar leads the technology vertical of large-scale Initiative on Forest Economy at Bharti Institute of Public Policy, Indian School of Business, Hyderabad. He works on a combination of designing data capture frameworks, building simulations and computational models combining primary and secondary data, design technology stack and support co-development of digital and mechanical solutions with communities.

Apurva Duddu

Apurva Duddu is Governance Specialist at Indian School of Business. She has a background in Natural Resource Governance and is currently leading the initiative on Forest Economy in Himachal Pradesh. Her work involves engagement with government stakeholders, researchers, and local communities.

Dr. Satish Gogulwar is the co-founder of Amhi Amchya Arogyasathi, not-for-profit Organization working towards bridging the issues of community related to women, tribal communities, and farmers through the community empowerment approach. He was an active member of Chhatra Yuva Sangharsha Vahini. He has spent a major part of his career in the field of preventive community health and is a well-known expert in the domain. His work focuses on strengthening the community through self-governance. He completed his MBBS from Nagpur University. At present, he is the convener of Amhi Amchya Arogyasathi and is associated with civil society organizations as an advisor and trainer.

Dr. Satish Gogulwar

Jayanti Buruda is a member of the state Tribal council of Orissa from Malkangiri. She is the first tribal women from Malkangiri to make a career in TV journalism. Her work is focussed on documenting stories on livelihood, health, and social justice in the tribal landscapes of Odisha.

Jayanti Buruda

Satya Prasanna is a social activist and a researcher. He has been working on issues related to the politics and governance of natural resources in India. In the last twenty-five years, he has collaborated with several civil society organizations, research institutions and social movements in rural landscapes of India. At present, he is working towards establishing a process for the rapid upscaling of community forest resource rights in Odisha, Himachal Pradesh, and Jharkhand.

Satya Prasanna

Ambuja Kumar Tripathy teaches Political Science, and he is associated with the University of Delhi, Delhi. His teaching experience includes offering a course on ‘Social Movements’ at Department of Political Science of the University of Delhi and teaching courses related to Development Politics and Comparative Politics at Lakshmibai College and Shri Ram College of Commerce of the same university. He has worked as an affiliated fellow at the Developing Countries Research Centre, University of Delhi. Recently, he worked as faculty at the Institute for Social and Economic Change (ISEC), Bengaluru. He was selected by the Watson Institute of Brown University, USA as a fellow for international development studies in 2010 and for the Brown international fellowship for the school on ‘globalization and inequality in the global South’ in 2015.

He obtained his PhD in Political Science from the University of Delhi in 2015. His research focuses on development discourse in state-civil society relation with case studies from the state of Odisha in Eastern India. His recent research projects have engaged with citizenship and marginality in Delhi and social movements in contemporary Karnataka. His interest areas are development studies, political and social theory (particularly state, civil society and public sphere), comparative politics, and citizenship studies. He has received education and research excellence awards, presented papers in several national and international conferences, and contributed to several volumes and peer reviewed national and international journals.

Ambuja K Tripathy

Dr Bitopi Dutta

Dr Bitopi Dutta is an Assistant Professor at the School for Life at the University of Petroleum and Energy Studies, Dehradun, India. She is a former IRC Scholar and has a PhD from Dublin City University, Ireland. She earned her MA in Social Work from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, and her BA Honours in Sociology from Lady Shri Ram College, Delhi University, India. Her research interests include Development Induced Displacement (DID), traditional methods of conflict resolution, gender studies and indigenous people. She has co-authored and edited several book publications on DID and on traditional methods of conflict resolution in Northeast India.

Resmi Panicker

Karan Gulati

Karan Gulati is a Research Fellow at the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy and a lawyer in Delhi. Previously, Karan held positions at the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy (NIPFP) and the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER), where he worked on regulatory governance and judicial administration. He has been an occasional columnist for the Leap Blog, Indian Express, Times of India, and the Quint. Karan holds degrees in law and management from Symbiosis University.

Dr. Namita Wahi is a Fellow at CPR and Founding Director of the Land Rights Initiative. She is also a Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Law and Social Transformation in Bergen. She holds an SJD (doctoral) degree from Harvard Law School, where she wrote her dissertation on “The Right to Property and Economic Development in India”. Namita’s doctoral dissertation traces the historical evolution of the right to property in the Indian Constitution from the colonial period until 1967.

Namita’s research interests lie broadly in the areas of property rights, social and economic rights, and eminent domain or expropriation law. She has written extensively on these issues in various academic journals and edited volumes, as well as newspapers and magazines. Namita has taught courses in these areas at Harvard University, both at the Law School and the Department of Government, and at National Law School, Bangalore, and National University of Juridical Sciences, Kolkata.

Before entering academia, Namita was a litigator with Davis Polk and Wardwell in New York, where she practised primarily in the areas of bankruptcy, securities, criminal defence and asylum law. Namita also holds an LLM from Harvard Law School, where she was awarded the Laylin Prize for the "Best Paper in International Law" and BA and LLB(Hons.) degrees from the National Law School of India University, Bangalore, where she graduated first in her class, and received several gold medals for her academic achievements. She is a recipient of New India Fellowship for her forthcoming book on the history of the Fundamental Right to Property in the Indian Constitution.

ILDC is a unique platform that brings together people working in the land space within India and internationally. With nearly fifty panels of speakers on a diverse array of topics exploring the interface of secure land rights with inclusive development and technological transformations, the Fifth ILDC promises a rich and exciting week of deliberations. As the world emerges from the devastation of the COVID pandemic, secure land rights for all have become an imperative goal for sustainable development and zero poverty. I look forward to engaging with the ILDC community on these issues.

Namita Wahi

Shipra Deo

Shipra Deo leads Landesa’s work for gender equal and inclusive land governance in India. She is passionate about the gender dimension of social development and specializes in designing and implementing gender responsive strategies and programmes including those related to land. In the recent years she has done intensive research on inheritance by women and gendered aspects of land laws. Her work in the past two decades has focused on expanding opportunities for rural women and girls enabling them to have more control over their lives. She has intensive experience in strategic planning, management of cross-functional teams and catalysing positive changes in challenging contexts.

Troy Caruana Headshot

Troy Caruna- Director of Programs, Center for Values in International Development

He is a development practitioner, researcher, and teacher with over 7 years of experience in inclusive development, youth development, gender equity, applied/practical ethics, and education policy and practice. Currently serving as Director of Programs, Center for Values in International Development. Passionate about integration applied ethics into development practice to achieve more just , caring, equitable, and sustainable processes and outcomes.

Alex Paul Menon

Alex Paul Menon is a pro-people & pro-development IAS officer of batch 2006, Alex is a
service oriented individual with a passion in Rural Development, Public Health &Education.
He has a thirst for e-governance initiatives and a drive to excel in all domains of Public
Administration by utilising technology.
A three time winner of the prestigious National E Governance Awards,Many of his
E-Governance initiatives have been recognised and upscaled as state models.
An NREGS man right from the launch of the scheme, he has done pioneering work in
Poverty Alleviation through NREGS and Convergence Of Agriculture and Allied Sector
Schemes, along with Watershed works.
A transformational leader, Alex has developed innate interpersonal skills like team building,
effective communication skills, negotiation, motivation, conflict resolving & resource
management through his multiple innovative projects in Chhattisgarh in the most backward
and Maoist Affected Districts.
• Conceptualized and implemented Sanchar Kranti Yojana, a program for social, economic
and digital inclusion by improving mobile network coverage (from 8,000 to 17,000 villages)
and increasing mobile ownership (from 29%, lowest in the country, to 89%) by distributing
5m smartphones to women; largest such program in the world;
Developed Chief Minister’s Dashboard to monitor priority public programs through 267 KPIs
providing actionable insights using data analytics and data visualization; example of impact:
Maternal Mortality Rate reduced from 221 in 2015 to 173 in 2018 and net enrolment ratio in
upper primary schools increased from 77% to 83%
Established 36lnc, first start-up incubator of the state, supported by NITI Aayog, incubated
91 start-ups and supported commercialization of 30 products in the first year making it the
second largest incubator in the country.
He is an Acumen Fellow, an intensive one-year leadership development program to connect
and cultivate a pipeline of social changemakers Alex is a highly creative individual who
believes strongly that “All problems exist because of lack of ideas”.
Currently Alex holds charge as Joint Development Commissioner, Madras Export
Processing Zone under the Ministry of Commerce and Industries.

Geetanjoy Sahu is an Associate Professor at the Centre for Science, Technology & Society, School of Habitat Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai. His research and teaching interests include environmental jurisprudence, environmental regulation and policy, land and forest rights, the political economy of public policy implementation, and environmental movements.

He earlier served as a Post-Doctoral Associate at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Environment and Development (CISED), Bengaluru. He holds PhD in Political Science from the Institute for Social and Economic Change (ISEC), Bengaluru and MPhil from the Hyderabad Central University (HCU), Hyderabad. In 2010, he was selected for the Erasmus Mundus (EMEA) Scholarship from European Union and was associated with the Urban and Regional Planning and Geo-Information Department, ITC, the Netherlands as a Visiting Fellow. He was awarded the Justice E S Venkataramaiah Memorial Prize in recognition for his best PhD Thesis in Public Administration for the period 2005-2009 at the Institute for Social and Economic Change (ISEC), Bangalore, 2010. In 2007, he was awarded SARAi Fellowship from the Centre for the Study of Developing Society (CSDS), New Delhi as a young PhD student to work on Urban Environmental issues. He received the best research paper presentation award at the Indian Environmental Congress, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala in 2004. His PhD research work was supported by the Indian Council for Social Science Research (ICSSR), New Delhi from 2003-2006. He qualified National Educational Test (NET) for lectureship in Political Science in 2003.

Geetanjoy Sahu

His first learning school of tribal life has been Bastar in Chhattisgarh. As a campaigner, he was the part of dialogue and negotiations in every campaign. As a General Secretary, he does strongly believe that Ekta Parishad is a ‘School of Nonviolent thoughts and Actions’. He has been dedicated towards building a world free from hunger, injustice and violence.

Ramesh Sharma

Tushar Dash

Dr. Rajan

Dr. Rajan has been the Director of the Centre for Heritage, Environment and Development (c-hed) for the last eighteen years. He has worked for 24 years in the realm of Heritage, Environmental conservation and Urban Development and also in several international and academic settings. He has held several important positions like Programme Director of Bhodhigramme, Nodal Officer & Program Director of Centre for Heritage Studies, under the Department of Culture, Government of Kerala. He has also been actively involved in many research works focused on the conservation of the heritage areas of Kochi along with its development. As the Director of c-hed, Dr. Rajan is actively engaged in the City Development Plan and other heritage and environmental conservation projects in Kochi.

kerstin

Kerstin Sommer is a passionate expert on slum upgrading and transformation, informality, land, housing and shelter management, poverty reduction, inclusion and participation at UN-Habitat headquarters. She is focal point for the Sustainable Development Goal and the New Urban Agenda implementation in informal settlements, slums and marginalized areas in the Land Housing and Shelter Section of UN-Habitat. She is the Programme Manager of the Participatory Slum Upgrading Programme for the past 10 years. She has initiated urban poverty reduction strategies in all regions globally to facilitate the scaling up of slum upgrading, urban renewal, regeneration, and low-cost housing. Before then she contributed to the work of the Regional Office for Arab States, Regional Office for Africa on housing, slum upgrading, capacity building, governance and participation, municipal finance, participatory budgeting, and the sustainable villages programme of UN-Habitat.

She has almost 17 years of working experience at UN-Habitat. She holds a master-degree in Urban Geography – Spatial Development, Business Administration and Political Science from the University of Trier in Germany.

Dr Arabinda Kumar Padhee

Dr. Padhee is the Principal Secretary, Department of Agriculture and Farmers' Welfare, Odisha. He holds a Master’s degree in Agricultural Science from Banaras Hindu University (BHU) and a PhD from the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), New Delhi. He also holds a Master’s degree in Public Administration (MPA) from University of Birmingham, UK. He has taken public policy courses at University of Toronto; Civil Services College, Singapore; and University of Cambridge at various points in his career. Dr Padhee joined the Indian Administrative Services in 1996 and belongs to Odisha cadre. He has served on various positions during his tenure with the Indian government as well as Odisha Government. During his tenure with the Odisha Government, he was instrumental in drafting the Odisha State Agriculture Policy in 2008. He has also served as a member of the Technical Support Group of the erstwhile Planning Commission that prepared the District Agricultural Plan manual. Government of India appointed Dr Padhee as the first nodal officer to implement Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) in fertilizers in 2016.

Dr. Rajiv Pandey

Dr. Pandey is a professionally a statistician with more than 25 years of research experience in natural resource contribution to the welfare of dependent communities; biomass carbon sequestration; ecosystem valuation; climate change social vulnerability and adaptation assessment; plant functional trait-based assessment of ecosystem services. Currently he is working in the Indian Council of Forestry Research & Education (An Autonomous Body of the Government of India), as Head in the Division of Forestry Statistics since Oct 2019. He has also worked as Associate Professor at HNB Garhwal University, Srinagar for three years and also served as Additional Director for a year in the Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change, New Delhi.

Dr Sudhanshu Singh

Dr. Singh heads the IRRI South Asia Regional Centre (IRRI SARC)'s activities with a leadership role in forging strategic alliances to create impact with IRRI’s Research for Development Agenda to meet the emerging needs and expectations of farmers, consumers, other stakeholders, and the broader scientific community in South Asia. As an agronomist, he also contributes extensively to research on crop and natural resource management in fragile as well as favourable environments and aspects of the rice value chain, scale-appropriate mechanization, seed system, and agro-advisories. He has successfully implemented several collaborative research and scaling partnerships in South Asia with national and international public and private agencies and organizations, including the NARES, advanced research institutes, international NGOs, and CGIAR entities.

Share Jagdeesh Rao Puppala

Jagdeesh Rao Puppala has been the Chief Executive of Foundation for Ecological Security (FES) since its inception in 2001 till July 2020. As the ‘Anchor and Curator’ at FES, he has now taken on the responsibilities of influencing policy, advancing knowledge generation and exchange and constituency building for the Promise of Commons initiative that aims to improve the governance and management of 30 million acres of village commons (community forests and pastures) in India. A practitioner from the very beginning, his 34-year professional engagement has been on interrelated issues of poverty and environmental degradation and on ‘systems thinking’ at the interface of ecology, society, and economy. He has been conferred the prestigious ‘Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship’, 2015, and the Rainer Arnhold (Mulago) Conservation Fellowship, 2017. His areas of interest include Commons, decentralized governance, biodiversity informatics, systems thinking and history of science and law. In a career spanning over 35 years, he has focussed on the conservation of natural resources, the interrelated issues of poverty and environmental degradation and on systems thinking at the interface of ecology, society, and economy. He was part of the founding team of the Foundation for Ecological Security (FES) and served as its first Chief Executive from 2001 till July 2020. Under his leadership, FES was awarded the Times of India Social Impact Award (Environment category, 2012), Nobel Laureate Elinor Ostrom Award on Commons (Best practitioner, 2013), United Nation’s Land for Life award (2013), Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship (2015) and HCL Foundation – Best NGO award (Environment category, 2016).

He then transitioned his role within FES to an Anchor and Curator. As a Curator, he worked towards influencing policy, advancing knowledge exchange, and building a larger constituency for the Promise of Commons initiative. He has been working with national and international organizations on drawing policies around land rights and providing individual ownership to communities. After stepping down from FES in 2021, he joined the Omidyar Network, India as an entrepreneur in residence. He is a Skoll awardee for social entrepreneurship (2015), a Henry Arnhold (Mulago) Conservation Fellow (2017) and a Senior Ashoka Fellow (2021).

Mr Mehta along with his wife Trupti Parekh provide GPS instruments to village-level Forest Rights Committees to conduct surveys of land in tribal areas in Gujarat. The couple has managed to leverage technology and fight for justice by remaining in the confines of governance. Ambrish is the managing trustee of ARCH- Vahini (Action Research in Community Health and Development) that has cared about the implementation of the government’s rehabilitation programme since 1980. Ambrish graduated in Biology.

Ambrish Mehta

Patricia Mary Mukhim is an Indian social activist, writer, journalist and the Editor of Shillong Times. She is a recipient of honours such as Chameli Devi Jain award,ONE India award, FICCI-FLO award, UpendraNath Brahma Soldier of Humanity award,Siva Prasad Barooah National award and North East Excellence award. She was honoured with Padma Shri in the year 2000.

Ms. Mukhim is the founder of Shillong, We Care a non-governmental organization involved in the fight against the militancy in Meghalaya. She is a member of the National Security Advisory Board of the Government of India and serves as a member of the National Foundation for Communal Harmony, under the Ministry of Home Affairs, India. Mukhim is the director of Indigenous Women's Resource Centre, Shillong.

Patricia Mary Mukhim

Hanstad is the Chief Executive Officer at the Chandler Foundation. Prior to joining the Chandler Foundation in 2018, Tim co-founded Landesa with Roy Prosterman and spent over three decades with the organization, which included launching programs in China, the former Soviet Union, and India, where he lived for five years.

Tim is a Skoll Social Entrepreneur Awardee and Schwab Foundation Outstanding Social Entrepreneur. He has authored numerous books and articles on economic and social development, including One Billion Rising with Roy Prosterman and Robert Mitchell. Tim holds two law degrees from the University of Washington and a bachelor’s degree from Seattle Pacific University.

Or,

Tim Hanstad leads the Chandler Foundation as its CEO. The Chandler Foundation seeks a world of shared prosperity in which nations are well-governed, businesses help drive economic growth and societal well-being, and all individuals have the opportunity to flourish. Tim previously co-founded and was the longtime CEO of Landesa, the world's leading land rights organization. Tim led Landesa's growth from a 2-person operation to the #1-ranked human rights NGO in the world. He is a Skoll Social Entrepreneur Awardee and a 2008 Schwab Foundation Social Entrepreneur Fellow. His work has appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Washington Post, Stanford Social Innovation Review, Huffington Post and beyond. Tim is the proud spouse of Chitra and a father to four adult children from whom he draws inspiration. He has two law degrees from the University of Washington and has completed certificate programs at Harvard Business School and Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.

Tim Hanstad

Serene Ho

Serene Ho is a Vice-Chancellor’s Research Fellow at RMIT University hosted in the School of Science (Geospatial Science) and affiliated with the Centre for Urban Research. Her interdisciplinary research explores how new geospatial technologies used to map land rights in urban informal settlements impact trust relationships between communities and governments. Serene’s research brings together land administration and public administration to investigate how to build trust and public confidence in formal land information systems, one of the most corrupt public institutions globally. She is currently also engaged in a UNFCCC/UN-Habitat funded project investigating climate resilience in Honiara, Solomon Islands, where she leads the work on community profiling of urban informal settlements, as well as gender and climate change adaptation. Prior to joining RMIT, she was a Horizon 2020 Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Public Governance Institute at KU Leuven (Belgium) working on the its4land project. Serene’s broader research areas relate to social innovation and gender equity in urban land administration.

Micheal Ayebazibwe Rubanda is a Programme Management Specialist with executive level experience in the successful implementation and Management of International Development Programmes/Projects in a broad range of sectors. Areas of expertise include; Governance, WASH, Economic Strengthening, Climate Change Dynamics, Community Resilience, and Post-Conflict Rehabilitation. An astute manager who has mastered all the phases of project management from design to implementation, to monitoring and evaluation and is skilled at mentoring teams for effective leadership.
Michael has extensive experience managing collaborative partnerships between governments and development agencies. Worked with Development Agencies (USAID, JICA, OXFAM GB, War Child Holland, Voluntary Services Overseas) in Uganda, Cambodia, Kenya, Ethiopia and South Sudan. Currently, work as the Executive Director, ACTogether Uganda an affiliate Organisation of Slum Dwellers International.
Michael Holds a Master’s Degree of Management Studies, Masters of Leadership and Human Relations Studies, Postgraduate Diploma in Project Planning and Management, Postgraduate Diploma in Project Monitoring and Evaluation and Bachelors Degree of Social Sciences.

Micheal Ayebazibwe Rubanda

Dr M Prabhakar

Dr. Prabhkar is the Principal Scientist at National Innovation on Climate Resilient Agriculture, ICAR-CRIDA. He holds a doctorate in agriculture with specialization in entomology from ICAR-IARI, New Delhi, India. Research interests include remote sensing & GIS for crop health management, Crop-pest-weather interactions, seasonal dynamics, climate change & natural biological control of crop pests.

Neelam Patel

Neelam Patel, lawyer by profession, is Associate, Women and Land rights at WGWLO since 2018. She has worked in the development sector for the last 14 years. Prior to working with WGWLO, she was program coordinator at Mahila Housing Trust since 2008. She has worked as a land researcher in Tapi, Jaipur and Ranchi for Awareness. She headed the project for provision of 40 toilets in Sanand Taluka and Slum Rehabilitation policy for provision of houses to slum dwellers at Ambawadi and Sabarmati. She works with land rights thematic areas and trains PLW’s through capacity building training workshops to increase women’s access to land ownership in Gujarat and across india.

Wytske Chamberlain

Wytske Chamberlain – van der Werf currently works with LANDac as Programme Manager for the Knowledge Management component of the LAND-at-scale programme. Before this, she worked as an independent consultant in the field of inclusive business in rural contexts. She has a particular interest in land governance, inclusive business models in agriculture and large-scale land acquisitions.

Mercedes Stickler

M. Mercedes Stickler is a Senior Land Administration Specialist in the Africa Region of the World Bank, where she leads analytical work and supports Client governments to design and supervise investment operations that strengthen land governance. Previously, she led the Land Policy Reform for Agricultural Transformation in India Study and the World Bank’s agricultural land policy dialogue in India. Ms. Stickler has over 14 years of experience in the land sector, including seven years leading multi-sectoral teams to deliver investment operations, policy research, and advisory services at the World Bank, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and the World Resources Institute. Ms. Stickler has led the design and supervision of customary land registration operations leveraging low-cost, participatory technologies in Côte d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Myanmar, and Zambia and led land-related research in Cambodia, Kenya, Mali, Mozambique, Myanmar, Senegal, South Africa, Uganda, and Zambia. She co-authored a World Bank book on land governance and responsible agricultural investment and has authored numerous papers on land and resource management in India and sub-Saharan Africa.

Neelam Patel

Neelam Patel, lawyer by profession, is Associate, Women and Land rights at WGWLO since 2018. She has worked in the development sector for the last 14 years. Prior to working with WGWLO, she was program coordinator at Mahila Housing Trust since 2008. She has worked as a land researcher in Tapi, Jaipur and Ranchi for Awareness. She headed the project for provision of 40 toilets in Sanand Taluka and Slum Rehabilitation policy for provision of houses to slum dwellers at Ambawadi and Sabarmati. She works with land rights thematic areas and trains PLW’s through capacity building training workshops to increase women’s access to land ownership in Gujarat and across india.

Pinaki Halder

Pinaki Halder leads Landesa programs in West Bengal including two of the organization’s most innovative projects: the Girls Project(link is external), and the micro-plot work. Halder joined Landesa West Bengal as senior manager in July 2011 and was primarily responsible for forging strong partnership with the government for micro-plot distribution to rural poor of the state. Prior to joining Landesa, Pinaki was working within the government of West Bengal as deputy secretary. He was a civil servant with more than 23 years of experience in rural development, urban governance, disaster management and community development. He served as associate professor at the Administrative Training Institute, Kolkata for over four years where he gained experience in capacity development of government officials, NGOs and local self government functionaries on nuances of community development. Mr. Halder also worked with UNICEF India for more than six years in the area of Communication for Development with a focus on community-led behavior and social change for inclusive access to services provided through national flagship programs.

Sailabala Panda

Saila is a development professional with more than 16 years of experience of working for marginalized women in collaboration with multi stakeholders and government. She is an expert in farm based livelihood ,gender equality , women land rights, forest resource conservation & management . Currently working on forest rights and forest resource conservation and management. For a decade she has been engaged in empowering women through secure WLR. She is a member of national and global professional forums working to strengthen women land ownership . Participated in many national and global talk shows on women & land rights .

Shivani Gupta

hivani has more than 25 years of experience in consulting, technology and development sector, having spent more than two decades with global consulting companies like Capgemini India. She is currently the Co-CEO of Womanity Foundation and has been instrumental in designing and overseeing the foundation’s Women Land Rights Program in India. She has experience in conceptualizing business solutions and successfully implementing large complex business and technology transformations as well as in leading human resources integration programs. Shivani is a qualified Cost Accountant and holds an MBA from Mumbai University. She transitioned into the development sector recently starting a long immersive journey leading her to the understanding of the developmental challenges, different approaches, systemic issues and passion of the Indian Development sector leaders. Prior to Womanity Foundation, Shivani was at Dasra where she worked closely with adolescents centric issues and helped to strengthen non-profits focused on adolescents' well being, health, education and employability.

Senior Advisor, SUD-SC, GIZ India

Ms. Aparna Das got trained as an architect and later received a Master of Science degree in Urban Development Planning from Development Planning Unit, University College London. She was also a Special Program for Urban and Regional Studies (SPURS) Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), USA, during 2018-19. At present, she is working as a Senior Advisor in the Sustainable Urban Development – Smart Cities (SUD-SC) project of GIZ. She is working with the line ministries of Government of India at the central, state, and local level to implement various housing and urban development programmes. In a career spanning over twenty years, she has worked with different sector partners; national and international NGOs and other multi- and bilateral agencies, such as the World Bank, UNICEF, UNDP, DFID India. In recent years, she has been focusing on the contestations over land in urban areas and equity concerns in cities.

Aparna Das

Manikandan KP is the Institution Builder at Indian Housing Federation (IHF), an organisation that works towards reducing the inequalities faced by socially and economically weaker sections of the society by providing them access to affordable and sustainable housing. As Institution Builder, he interacts with Stakeholders in low-income Housing Sector in an effort to increase their participation in the Housing ecosystem targeted at this segment of the population. IHF has supported the PMAY(U) Missions in the States of Assam, Odisha, Haryana, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh.

Until late 2019, he was part of the PMAY(U) – Project Management Unit (PMU) at the Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs (MoHUA). As part of the team, Mani played the role of the Lead - Housing Finance and Policy for the Mission.

Manikandan is also a consultant to The World Bank and International Finance Corporation. He had in the past worked on Projects across India, Bangladesh and Indonesia. He has about 12 years of corporate experience in retail Housing finance, incl. Sundaram Home, ICICI Bank, ABN Amro Bank & Equitas and over 10 Years in government, consulting and social development sector shaping the Low-Income Housing Ecosystem. He is an MBA in Marketing & has also completed a course in Housing Finance from the Wharton Real Estate Center at University of Pennsylvania. He likes working on a strategic platform thereby bringing about operational changes to the processes & norms that are currently being followed in the Low-Income Housing Sector. He firmly believes that all stakeholders together can solve the Housing Challenge faced by the developing world.

Manikandan kp

Sanjoy Chakravorty is Professor of Geography and Urban Studies and Director of Global Studies at Temple University and Visiting Fellow at the Center for the Advanced Study of India at the University of Pennsylvania. He has authored over fifty academic papers and chapters and nine books on a range of subjects from India to epistemology to fiction. He has written books on information and identity (The Truth About Us), land (The Price of Land and Seeking Middle Ground), the Indian diaspora (The Other One Percent), income inequality (Fragments of Inequality), industrialization (Made in India), urbanization (Colossus), and a novel (The Promoter). He also writes occasional op-eds for leading newspapers in India. His writings have won awards in India, the US, and UK.

Ramya Ramanath

Sanjoy Chakraborty

Chandan Kumar Jha

Mr. Chandan Kumar Jha holds Ph. D. degree in economics from National Institute of Industrial Engineering Mumbai and is currently working as a Research Manager (FABLE India) at the India Institute of Management Ahmedabad. His previous research primarily focused on the micro-level assessment of Farmer’s Perception and Adaptive capacity to climate change in rural India. His current research interest lies in evaluating mitigation strategies for climate change and exploring sustainable food and land-use transformation pathways using integrated assessment modelling and decision-making tools for India. Mr. Chandan also works as a guest researcher at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Germany.

Prantika Das is a Senior Research Officer- Food Agriculture Biodiversity Land and Energy (FABLE) Pathways at the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad. She is also a Ph.D. candidate at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. Her major research interests are in the area of biofuels, sustainable food and land use systems, and evaluation of food-energy nexus. She is currently working on exploring food system transformations for India.

Prantika Das

Prof. Guus is an Assistant Professor for Human Geography and Spatial Planning at International Development Studies, Faculty of Geosciences, Utrecht University. He is a development geographer with works primarily concerned with equitable and sustainable development in global South with focus on rural and urban land governance issues. Currently he also holds the position of co-chair of LANDac, the Netherlands Academy on Land Governance for Development. His current research interests focus on local food security and addressing sustainability challenges in a development perspective with emphasis on agri-business mainly in Sub-Saharan Africa

Prof Guus van Westen

Vartika Singh

Vartika Singh is a Ph.D. Candidate at Humboldt University of Berlin and holds dual appointments with IIM Ahmedabad as Senior Research Officer and IFPRI, New Delhi office as Senior Research Analyst. She has extensive experience in applied microeconomics assessments with farmers in South Asia and is presently working on identifying sustainable transformation policies for the land-water-energy nexus in India through her research

Smiti Sahoo

She is an impact investment professional with over 9 years experience in impact investing, corporate strategy, investment research, business development and consulting.

Currently, She is working as an Investment Manager at LGT Venture Philanthropy, an independent Foundation working towards improving the quality of life of disadvantaged people by deploying philanthropic growth capital. I work closely on developing investment strategy, pipeline building and portfolio management for LGT VP's investments in India in the Education, Healthcare and Environment domains. Prior to this, She was an LGT Impact Fellow at Varthana, a provider of financing and advisory solutions in the affordable education sector, in Strategy, Advisory and Fund raising roles. Previously, working as an Associate in the Corporate Treasury function at Goldman Sachs, focusing on Funding and Liquidity Risk Management.

She is an MBA graduate in the Business Management program at XLRI Jamshedpur with specialization in Finance. I have a B.Tech degree in Biotechnology from IIT Guwahati with prior consulting work experience at Deloitte and research experience at University of Basel in Computational Biology.

Prof. Gowda has been active in politics since his return to India in 2000. He was invited by Smt. Sonia Gandhi to participate in the Vichar Manthan Shivir in 2003. Thereafter, in 2004, he was included in a team of 24 young leaders who worked with Shri Rahul Gandhi when he entered politics. He was chosen to launch the Congress party’s youth- focussed campaign in Guwahati in the 2004 Lok Sabha elections. Since then, he has provided inputs for training the Youth Congress and NSUI. He was also Convenor of the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee's (KPCC) Vichar Vibhag. He was a part of the manifesto committee for the assembly and BBMP elections.

In 2009, Prof. Gowda co-founded Hamara Congress.com which promoted the Congress party’s campaign online. On behalf of the All India Congress Committee (AICC), he conducted a youth-focussed event in Mysore as part of the Congress 125th anniversary celebrations. He actively participated in the 320 km long Congress 'Bellary Chalo, Bellary Bacchao and BJP Hatao’ padayatra against illegal mining in Karnataka.

Rajeev Gowda

Bhargavi Rao

Bhargavi S. Rao graduated in Environmental Science and is a Botanist with an M’Phil degree in Aerobiology from Bangalore University. She also has a post graduate diploma in Journalism. Her initial research experience was in the areas of Microbiology and Cell Biology and she has worked at the Microbiology and Cell Biology Department of the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. She has co-authored research papers in journals like Current Science and Virology. She has had teaching experience as a lecturer in Botany and Microbiology at The BMS College for Women, Bangalore and also as a high School Teacher in Geography and Economics at the Sri Aurobindo Memorial School, Bangalore.

Her interest in Environmental and Social justice issues brought her to Environment Support Group (ESG), where she has led a wide variety of research and educational projects and campaign initiatives. She coordinated educational and training programmes at ESG with a focus on enhancing awareness and critical engagement in social and environmental justice issues. She has co-worked as Coordinator and Faculty of the India sector of the ‘Cities of the 21st Century’ and ‘Health and Community’ courses of the International Honors program, a study abroad program from 2002-2009, and as Co-Director of the India Centre of the Minnesota Studies in International Development, a division of the Learning Abroad Centre of University of Minnesota, USA (2014-2017).

Bhargavi has also been a guest faculty at the Simpson Centre for Humanities, Washington University, Seattle in 2013. She has been a co-speaker at many of the talks and workshops on the issues of Environment and Social Justice in Universities across USA, Germany, Vietnam and China. In recognition of her long-standing contribution in the voluntary sector, the Association for India’s Development has awarded her the AID “Saathiship” (2010-2013).

Her interests include Environmental Education, Experiential Education, Environmental health, Biodiversity, Traditional and Indigenous knowledge, Governance, Gender Issues, Law, Public Policy and Urban and Community studies.

As Senior Fellow, Bhargavi is involved in overseeing research and educational efforts. As Trustee, she is also a member of the organisation’s Executive Committee. She has worked with Centre for Financial Accountability, Public Health Foundation of India and Azim Premji Philanthropic Initiatives.

Melinda Maldonado

Argentine lawyer (Catholic University of Santa Fe, Argentina, 2004) with a degree validated in Colombia (2010). She has a PhD in Urban Studies (National University of General Sarmiento, Argentina, 2021), a specialization degree in Real Estate and Urban Law (National University of Rosario, Argentina, 2010) and studies in Urban Land Policies (Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, 2007). She has extensive experience in the public and private sector in urban and environmental issues. She is an independent consultant and a professor at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy and at various universities. Her areas of expertise are: comparative urban law, urban-environmental conflicts and climate change.

Leo F Saldanha

Leo F. Saldanha is full-time Coordinator and also Trustee of ESG. He has gained wide-ranging experience in the areas of Environmental Law and Policy, Decentralisation, Urban Planning and a variety of Human Rights and Development related issues, working across many sectors for over a decade. He is a keen campaigner on critical environmental and social justice issues and has guided several campaigns demanding evolution of progressive laws and effective action. He has creatively supported various distressed communities to secure justice through public interest litigations and advocacy efforts, arguing as party in person several public interest litigations, many of which have resulted in remarkable judgments. He has a background in Environmental Science.

Mr. L k Areeq

Public policy and development professional with 30 years of experience in public sector in an emerging market and developing country (India). My experience includes working in the field as Chief Executive Officer of a District Government (Zilla Panchayat), District Magistrate in two districts, at the state level as Director of Rural Drinking Water and Sanitation and State Project Director of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (Education for All Campaign), at the national level in the Prime Minister's Office as Director and eventually as Joint Secretary in charge of the social sector, and at the international level as a representative of India on the Board of the World Bank Group at Washington DC.

I am currently the Principal Secretary to the Chief Minister of Karnataka Mr. Siddaramaiah. In this role I aid and assist the chief minister in discharge of his functions. Particularly, I advice him on staffing of senior and middle management, policies and programs of the Government.

I am a Government nominee on the Boards of the Karnataka Power Transmission Corporation Ltd., Karnataka Power Corporation Ltd., Bengaluru Metro Rail Corporation Ltd., Information Technology Parks Ltd., and a set of Irrigation companies.

I am passionate about education and health policy and governance reform. Had the unique opportunity to be in the Prime Minister's Office when education became a fundamental right and higher education saw unprecedented expansion. Has a role in revamping of the Integrate Child Development Services, emergence of a National Health Mission, and the Food Security Law.

I like films, books, music and poetry and I am fond of travel and food.

Happily married with a daughter and a son.

Vinod Vyasulu is an economist associated with the Centre for Budget and Policy Studies, Bangalore, with an interest in improving policy design and implementation in developing countries. His area of current interest is fiscal federalism.

Vinod Vyasulu

Anand Iyer is Director - Projects, at Jana Urban Services for Transformation Pvt. Ltd., and Technical Advisor, Janaagraha.

Anand has over the last 22 years worked across State & Central Govt. in Urban Development; Private sector & Consulting in Land, Infrastructure and Building; Academia and Practice in Architecture & Design, and now a Civil Society Organization in Citizenship and Democracy.

Anand works on growth & strategy for organizations, developing policy, programs and projects. His core areas are Urban Affairs, Land Development and Climate Action. He was earlier Chief Project Manager at the National Institute of Urban Affairs, New Delhi (Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs); AGM, Strategy & Planning at Aspen Infrastructures, Pune (Suzlon Family Group).

He is an architect from CEPT University, Ahmedabad in the ‘90s and has studied Critical Theory from Nottingham University, England. With a passion for History and the Humanities, he inquires into the Social, Political & Ideological perspectives that inform Development.

Anand Iyer

A seasoned professional with around 20 years of experience, Ms Hiral has been with Cohesion since 2008. She completed her Bachelor’s in Arts (Psychology) from St. Xavier’s College, Ahmedabad followed by Post Graduation in Management of Non-Government Organisations, Entrepreneurship Development Institute in 2002 which has given her insight of working on entrepreneurship development in women and youth.

At Cohesion she is the Programme Director and provides strategic guidance to the teams for integrating gender, inclusiveness and institution building in the work with women, youth and communities across Cohesion’s geographical coverage. She has worked in different areas of development sector including Women empowerment, Gender, Micro finance, Livelihoods, besides other areas of work. She has explored learning, shaped experience and increased productivity in leadership role in communication, training, networking, monitoring and evaluation. As an EDI alumnus she gives resource lectures to the students in graduate and PG programmes at EDI and is involved in youth activities in Xaviers. She won Second Award in 2014 for “Best Case in Livelihoods” by ACCESS Sitaram Rao Case Study Competition – Livelihood Asia Summit. She has keenly worked on education projects with focus on strengthening of grassroots institutions such as SMC and improving girls’ education through community initiatives. She is a master trainer for women and adolescent girls on life skills and gender aspects. With expertise in women farmers and their identity, her key areas of interest include developing women’s identity as entrepreneurs, as farmers and as decision makers in their own spheres of life. Her dream and passion is to work on empowerment of women farmers and has done remarkable contribution towards that.

Ms. Hiral Dave

Melinda Maldonado

Sahithi

I am a Ph.D. student at the Ashoka Trust for Research in the Ecology and Environment (ATREE) & Manipal Academy for Higher Education (MAHE), studying the politics of protected areas, focusing on land relations, agrarian livelihoods and cultural identities, in the Amrabad Tiger Reserve, Telangana. I have spent significant amount of my life studying agriculture as a lab science, although reluctantly. It took me a while to figure out a language to understand and locate my unease with the university lead, lab based, troubleshooting focused, status quoist agricultural sciences. The urge to go beyond the set boundaries of university bred academic agriculture to critically analyse the sociology of agriculture and to explore options of redistribution of resources has driven my journey thus far.

Lekshmi M

Lekshmi M is a Programme Officer associated with Forest Rights and Governance Project at School of Habitat Studies. She did her graduation in BA Social Sciences from TISS, Hyderabad and post graduation in MA Water Policy and Governance from TISS Mumbai. As an SBI Youth for India fellow, Lekshmi worked with Dhan Foundation, Tamil Nadu on rural drinking water systems. She has also been a Governance Consultant with Government of Andhra Pradesh. Her previous research includes the social security measures required for women construction workers, challenges of families of migrant labourers, analysis of drought declaration methods, informal labour markets and reverse migration of labourers during COVID-19 crisis. Her research interest includes forest rights, informal labour, water governance, social protection and gender rights.

C.R Yadu

C.R.Yadu is a socio economist based in Chennai, India. Currently, he is working as an independent researcher. His main research interest is in studying the way capitalism unfolds in the rural/urban spaces in the global South and its distributional dynamics.

Gemma Betsema

Gemma Betsema is the facilitator of the Netherlands LANDdialogue, an initiative by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to exchange knowledge and experiences between Dutch stakeholders active in land-related investments and projects. Prior to that, Gemma was a project lead for Shared Value Foundation in the context of their Learning Platforms initiative - in collaboration with LANDac, CIFOR and the Food & Business Knowledge Platform (F&BKP). From 2012 - 2016 she was coordinator of the Netherlands Land Academy (LANDac

Chitra Hanstad

Chitra Hanstad recently joined Landesa as the Senior Philanthropic Officer for Asia, and now resides in Bengaluru, India. Prior to this, she served as the Executive Director/ CEO for World Relief Western Washington, the largest refugee resettlement and services agency in Washington State. Before that she worked in India, where she and her family lived for five years. She spent the last year of that time as Senior Consultant for Justice Ventures International, working on anti-human trafficking campaigns, strategic planning, and fund development. Chitra has also been on the donor side as a Philanthropic Advisor for Seattle Foundation and also managed their scholarship program. While her career started in corporate advertising, public relations, and intercultural communications, she has spent most of the last twenty-five years working for local and international non-profits. Chitra has worked in Seattle, Chicago, Philadelphia, India, Romania, Mexico, and the Netherlands. Chitra holds a Master of Arts Degree in Marketing Communications from Wheaton College and a Master of Science degree in International Development from Eastern University. Chitra has served on many boards including, Landesa, Covenant World Relief & Urban Impact, and volunteers with The Stability Network. Recently, Chitra completed a Certificate Course in “Accelerating Social Transformation” with the UW Evans School and UW School of Business, as a Raikes Foundation Scholar. Chitra has been a participant and delegate at the 2018 World Economic Forum and the Skoll World Forum. She is also part of the Catalyst 2030 community.

Nitin Sethi

Nitin is a journalist, a member of The Reporters' Collective and the Media Lead at the National Foundation for India. He has written, reported and investigated for two decades on the intersections of India's political economy, natural resources, environment, climate change, economy, public finance and development. He has previously worked in editorial positions at The Business Standard, Scroll.in, The Hindu, The Times of India and Down To Earth.

Andita Listyarini

Resmi C. Panicker has nine years of teaching experience in various colleges under Collegiate Education Department, Government of Kerala. She specialises in the area of Environmental Economics and Urban Economics. She is well-versed in surveying and using statistical techniques. Her Ph.D. thesis is ‘Urbanisation in Kerala: A Case Study of Kollam District’.

Ramya Ramanath, Associate Professor and Chair of the International Public Service degree at DePaul’s School of Public Service, teaches graduate courses on cross-sector relations, sustainable international development, the management of international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and public policy implementation.

Her research, spread over three continents, draws on disciplinary perspectives in organizational behavior, urban sociology, planning, anthropology, and political science. Her projects are situated in the very organizations that seek her advice in their continuous improvement efforts. In particular, she analyzes the behavior of international and domestic NGOs/nonprofit organizations in the context of their interactions with three key stakeholders: 1) government agencies; 2) other NGOs/nonprofits; and, 3) intended beneficiaries.

Her most recent publication is a book titled A Place to Call home: Women as Agents of Change in Mumbai (July 2018). This book is the product of an ethnographic field study in which Ramanath examines the lives of women displaced by slum clearance and relocated to the largest slum resettlement site in Asia. Through conversations with diverse women―of different ages, levels of education, types of employment, marital status, ethnicity, caste, religion, and household make-up―Ramanath recounts how women negotiate a drastic change in environment, from makeshift housing in a park slum to ownership of a high-rise apartment in a posh Mumbai suburb. Each phase of their city lives reflects how women initiate change and disseminate a vision valuable to planners intent on urban and residential transformations. She urges the concerted engagement of residents in design, development, and evaluation of place-making processes in cities and within their own neighborhoods especially.

In the years prior to her academic career in the U.S., Ramanath helped start a micro-finance institution in Southern India and worked in housing finance and development agencies in both urban and rural India. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Economics, a Master’s in Social Work, both from India, and a Ph.D. in Environmental Design & Planning from Virginia Tech.

Uchendu Eugene CHIGBU

Uchendu Eugene CHIGBU is Associate Professor in Land Administration. His works fall within the interface between Social Sciences and Geodesy. He is an Associate Editor of the Journal Land Use Policy. He is a co-Chair of the Research Cluster of the Global Land Tool Network (UN-Habitat). He is also the Coordinator of the Network of Excellence on Land Governance in Africa (NELGA) in the Southern African Region. He has particular interest on how to communicate land governance knowledge through non-academic media. His most recent book, “Land Governance and Gender: The Tenure–Gender Nexus in Land Management and Land Policy” was published in 2022.

Dr G Sai Prasad

Dr G Sai Prasad is an IAS, has assumed charge as the Chairman & Managing Director of Central Power Distribution Company of AP Limited on. 25th May 2006.Prior to this, he was the CMD of Eastern Power Distribution Company of AP Limited at Vizag. A graduate from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi and a Postgraduate Degree Holder in International Development Policy from Duke University, USA, Sri Sai Prasad belongs to the 1991 batch of the Indian Administrative Service. Sri Sai Prasad began his career in 1991 as Assistant Collector in Warangal and later worked as subcollector of Paderu, Visakhapatnam from 1993-1995. He was the Project Director of ITDA, Paderu for a period of three months (May 1995 to Aug 1995), worked as Municipal Commissioner, Guntur from 1995-1997, was Joint Collector, Kadapa from 1997-1998 and later as District Collector and Magistrate at Kurnool in 2000 and Chittoor in 2003.

Youth Land specialist, Coordinator of Youth Initiative for Land in Africa (YILAA), has over 10 years of experience in land expertise, management, business planning, financial analysis, software engineering, operations, and decision analysis. Before founding YILAA in 2019, Innocent Antoine worked on the Millennium Challenge Corporation's Land Access Project in Benin where he has done much research about Youth Access to Land. He has previously held various management positions in Benin, most recently as Regional Head of Office of the Benin National Agency for Land Affairs and Domains (ANDF). Member of Regional Work Group of UEMOA / WAEMU on Rural Land.

Have been in school education for over 25 years. A dynamicleader and believer in collaborative and participative pedagogy.Francis facilitates a child centric perspective as in practice in theschool. He enjoys an amicable personal disposition to take theteam together. His interest in the contemporary issues andinitiative to explore, analyze and demonstrate his high researchinterest and publication. He has been regular contributor tovarious journals and other forums and enjoys high ethicalstandards as an educator and researcher. Together with thisimportant research qualification Francis is well versed in dealing with the processes andprotocols of the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), NewDelhi.

Francis Xavier

Innocent

Carla Garcia Zendejas

Carla García Zendejas (she/her) is an environmental attorney* from Tijuana, Mexico with fifteen years experience in the field. She served as staff attorney and was co-founder of Yeuani, the first public interest law organization on the border, which provided free legal services to women working in the maquiladora industry. Her early work in support of maquiladora workers led to broad environmental

justice campaigns on the U.S.-Mexico border. She was instrumental in founding organizations which promoted sustainable energy infrastructure, water quality and government transparency and accountability. Carla succeeded in making government agencies more transparent to the public by incorporating public participation and right-to-know mechanisms into local regulations.

As Mexican Director for the Border Power Plant Working Group Carla empowered communities with critical knowledge to advocate against unsustainable liquefied natural gas projects in Mexico, the U.S. and Spain. In January of 2003 she was featured on “The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer” for her work challenging ill-advised power plants in Mexico designed to serve U.S. energy needs.

While serving as Officer for Human Rights & Extractive Industries at DPLF Carla trained indigenous communities across the Andean Region on their right to free, prior and informed consent while

providing technical expertise on the impacts of mining.Since 1998 Carla has been a partner with ELAW–Environmental Law Alliance Worldwide, a network of more than 300 public interest advocates from 70 countries.

She has served on the boards of several organizations including Vigilantes de Bahia Magdalena, Proyecto Fronterizo de Educacion Ambiental, Fronteras Unidas Pro Salud and the Waterkeeper

Alliance. Carla earned a Masters in Law from the Washington College of Law at American University

Mr Phoolman Chaudhary

Mr. Chaudhary serves as a Member of the Global Steering Committee of the Indigenous Peoples’ Forum at the International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD). He presently also serves as Executive President of Asian Indigenous International Network (AIIN) and Consultant Advisor of Unison for People’s Alliance (UPA) in Nepal, organizations who advocate for indigenous peoples rights and to building the capacity of indigenous peoples to address the challenges facing their respective communities. He has also served as an Indigenous Fellow with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in Geneva, Switzerland.

For over two decades, Mr. Chaudhary has been one of the key players of the indigenous peoples’ movement in Nepal on the issues of indigenous peoples’ rights. He hails from the Tharu community, the second largest indigenous community in Nepal.

He previously worked as a Research Consultant in Adam Smith International, United Kingdom. Consequently, he worked as a Resource Person under the Local Governance and Community Development Program for the Ministry of Federal Affair and Local Development of Nepal. Likewise, He has worked with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) as a Senior Program Coordinator in Nepal. He also possesses 10 years’ work experiences as a Theme Leader with the Nepal National Social Welfare Association.

Yon Fernandez-de-Larrinoa

Yon Fernández-de-Larrinoa is head of the Indigenous Peoples Unit of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) since 2014. In the frame of his responsibilities, he co-coordinates the Global-Hub on Indigenous Peoples’ Food Systems that he started in 2020, supported the creation of the Coalition on Indigenous Peoples food systems post UN summit and with Canada Started the Group of Friends of Indigenous Peoples in Rome. He has been one of the main authors and coordinator of key publications by FAO on Indigenous Peoples' Food Systems, Matrifocal
Societies and Labelling and Certification. He coordinated the inclusion of FPIC in FAO projects and programmes and designed the FAO manual on Free Prior and Informed Consent. Yon joined FAO in 1998 as a policy officer, working in Latin America, and Asia, coordinating emergency operations in the tsunami, avian influenza, Peru earthquake and Haiti earthquake. In 2010, Yon joined the Partnerships and UN Collaboration division leading the FAO Civil Society team, co-authoring the strategy to
engage with civil society and supporting the participation of civil society in the World Committee of Food Security. He co-founded the Pastoralists Knowledge-Hub in FAO. Yon Fernandez de Larrinoa is
an agricultural economist with a MABD on entitlements and food security.

Diya Uday

Diya leads the research work on land markets at XKDR Forum. Her interests are in the areas of regulatory governance, state capacity and access to finance. She has worked on projects for the World Bank, National Council for Applied Economic Research; the Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, the Department of Economic Affairs at the Ministry of Finance (Government of India) and the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development. She has been visiting faculty at the Tata Institute of Social Science in Mumbai, and has previously been an associate at leading law firms in India including Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas.