Conference Participants
GLENN DAVIS STONE
Professor of Anthropology and Environmental Studies, Washington University, St. Louis
Glenn Davis Stone is an ecological anthropologist who researches agricultural systems. His main focus has been on sustainability and small farms, with extensive field research among farmers in Nigeria and India, and secondary fieldwork in the US. He was written extensively on the social, economic, and political aspects of farming in the developing world, with particular interest in biotechnology in recent years. His research has been published in over 20 journals including Current Anthropology, American Anthropologist, World Development, AgBioForum, Human Ecology, and Development in Practice. His fieldwork has been primarily funded by the National Science Foundation and he has been the recipient of a Gordon Willey Prize, a Weatherhead Fellowship, and a National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship. He has been on the faculties of Columbia University and Washington University, where he is currently Professor of Anthropology and Environmental Studies. He is President of the Anthropology & Environment section of the American Anthropological Association.
ESHA SHAH
Assistant Professor, Department of Technology and Society Studies, Maastricht University
Esha Shah is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Technology and Society Studies in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Maastricht University, The Netherlands. She is an environmental engineer by training and a social anthropologist by choice. Her main areas of work involve anthropology and history of science and technology with special reference to environment and development. She acquired her doctorate from Wageningen University, The Netherlands and has held research and teaching positions at Institute of Economic and Social Change, Bangalore and Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, UK.
DOMINIC GLOVER
Post-doctoral Fellow, Technology and Agrarian Development Group, Wageningen University
Dominic Glover is a postdoctoral researcher with the Technology and Agrarian Development Group at Wageningen University in the Netherlands. He has over a decade of experience in research, communication and policy analysis relating to technological change in developing country agriculture. Having worked intensively on transgenic crop issues between 2000 and 2009, he is currently engaged in research to understand and explain the emergence and spread of the System of Rice Intensification (SRI), a non-GM farming technology which has been the subject of similar controversy and raises similar questions about the relationship between agricultural research and extension, international development policy and strategy, and farming practice. He has published peer-reviewed articles on both topics in various journals including the Journal of Peasant Studies, the Journal of Agrarian Change, the Journal of East Asian Science, Technology and Society, and Third World Quarterly. As well as considerable research experience in India he has also worked in Nepal and Madagascar.
SUMAN SAHAI
Convener, Gene Campaign
Dr. Suman Sahai has had a distinguished scientific career in the field of genetics. She was honored with one of India’s highest civilian honors, the Padma Shri in 2011. In 2004 she received the Borlaug Award for her outstanding contribution to agriculture and environment. Dr. Sahai received her Ph.D. degree in genetics from the Indian Agricultural Research Institute in New Delhi. She served as a faculty member at the University of Alberta in Canada, University of Chicago in the U.S., and the University of Heidelberg in Germany. Dr. Sahai returned to India in 1990 and organized Gene Campaign, a non-governmental organization dedicated to protecting farmers’ rights and food and livelihood security. She was appointed Knight of the Golden Ark (Netherlands) in 2001.Dr. Sahai has published extensively on science and policy issues related to food security and has been working both at the grassroots and policy levels. She is a member of several national policy forums on international trade, biodiversity and environment, biotechnology and bioethics, intellectual property rights, research and education. She chaired the Planning Commission Task Force on ‘Agro biodiversity and Genetically Engineered Organisms’, for the Eleventh Plan. She was a member of the National Biodiversity Board and has served on the Research Advisory Committees of national scientific institutions, the Expert Committee on Biotechnology Policy and the Bioethics Committee of the Indian Council of Medical Research.
RAJESHWARI RAINA
Principal Scientist, National Institute of Science, Technology, and Development Studies, New Delhi
Rajeswari S. Raina (Ph.D. Economics) is a Principal Scientist with the National Institute of Science, Technology and Development Studies (NISTADS-CSIR), New Delhi. She has been researching on the societal dimensions of science and technology, specializing in agricultural and rural knowledge systems. Her background in the sciences and economics has provided her the unique advantage of effectively navigating the critical interface between development policy and scientific knowledge. Her current research focuses on policy and institutional reform, as well as capacities for (a) innovation for inclusive development in India and China, (b) bio-innovation systems, and (c) changes in the agriculture-environment interface.
SUKHPAL SINGH
Professor, Centre for Management in Agriculture, Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad
Sukhpal Singh is with the Centre for Management in Agriculture (CMA), Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Ahmedabad since 2004. His recent books include: Fresh Food Retail Chains in India (2011), and Organic Produce Supply Chains in India (2009). He has more than 100 research papers in refereed journals and edited books to his credit. He was a visiting fellow at IDS, Sussex (UK), Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok (Thailand), and University of Manchester; and has been a member of various committees/working groups of the Planning Commission for the 11th and the 12th Plan, and the National Development Council. He is President of an NGO- Satvik: Promoting Ecological Farming, Bhuj (Gujarat). His research interests are in vertical co-ordination of agribusiness chains and their governance focusing on small producer participation and organization, and worker wellbeing. He has been a consultant to ADB, FAO, ILO, IFAD, ICCO, Traidcraft, IAASTD, and the World Bank. He is a member of a globally networked research project on global production and trade networks called ‘Capturing the Gains’. He is a founding editor of Millennial Asia- an international journal of Asia studies.
JOHN HARRISS
Professor and Director, School for International Studies, Simon Fraser University;
and Visiting Research Professor, Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore
John Harriss is a social anthropologist with longstanding interests in the agrarian political economy of South Asia, and research experience in southern and eastern India, Sri Lanka and Nepal. Earlier research, concerned with the social and political impact of the ‘green revolution’, published in the monograph Capitalism and Peasant Farming: Agrarian Change and Ideology in northern Tamil Nadu (OUP 1982), and recently revived in a contribution to Poverty Dynamics (Addison, Hulme and Kanbur, eds, OUP, 2009). More recent work contributes to the revival of the tradition of ‘village studies’ in India, through re-studies of the ‘Slater’ villages of Tamilnadu. He has taught at Cambridge, the University of East Anglia, the London School of Economics and now at Simon Fraser University.
PETER P. MOLLINGA
Professor of Development Studies, Department of Development Studies, SOAS, London, UK
and Senior Researcher, Crossroads Asia project, ZEF Center for Development Research, Bonn, Germany
Dr Peter P. Mollinga was trained as an irrigation engineer at Wageningen University, the Netherlands; his PhD is on the political economy of irrigation water management in South India. He presently divides his time between two half-time positions. He is Professor of Development Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), London, UK, and Senior Researcher at the Center for Development Research (ZEF) at Bonn University, Germany, in the Crossroads Asia research project. He worked as a Senior Researcher at ZEF from 2004-2010, where he did his Habilitation in Development Sociology, and before that as an Associate Professor at the Irrigation and Water Engineering group, Wageningen University, the Netherlands. He is one of the three founding editors of Water Alternatives. An interdisciplinary journal on water, politics and development. His research fields are water governance & water politics, agrarian change and technology, and inter- and transdisciplinary approaches to natural resources management. His geographical focus is Asia, particularly South Asia and Central Asia. He is developing comparative research programmes on water policy and globalisation, and on water resources and regime change in the MENA region.
ROBIN JEFFREY
Visiting Research Professor, Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore
Robin Jeffrey taught school in India from 1967-9 and received a doctorate in Indian history at Sussex University in 1973. He taught for 25 years in the Politics Program at La Trobe University in Melbourne, worked twice at ANU in Canberra and has lived for six years in India between 1967 and 2012. He is the author of Politics, Women and Well-Being (3rd edition 2011), India’s Newspaper Revolution (3rd edition 2010) and Media and Modernity (2010). His current research is on mobile phones and how they transform India.
PRIYA SANGAMESWARAN
Fellow in Development Studies, Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Kolkata
Priya Sangameswaran works broadly at the intersection of developmental studies and environmental studies, drawing on heterodox economic theory, post development theory and political ecology. Most of her research to date has been on the question of equity and justice with regard to access to water and its link with discourses of development and processes of neoliberalization. She has cultivated a relatively newer interest in cities and the ways in which trajectories of urbanization have been changing as well as what this implies for debates about rights, citizenship, development, and the ‘natural’ environment.
JONATHAN PATTENDEN
Assistant Professor, School of International Development, University of East Anglia, UK
Jonathan Pattenden is Assistant Professor at the School of International Development, University of East Anglia, UK. His research focuses on the interactions between government institutions, civil society and social relations. His current research is on rural labor and critiques of neo-liberal approaches to poverty reduction. It analyses how class relations in India are modified by state and civil society interventions, and broader processes of agrarian change and social and economic development.
NIKHIL RAO
Assistant Professor of History, Wellesley College, USA
Nikhil Rao is Assistant Professor of History at Wellesley College. His book titled House, But No Garden. Apartment Living in Bombay’s Suburbs, 1898-1964 is in press with the University of Minnesota Press. The book deals with the transformations of lands, dwellings, and communities at the urban edge as the city expanded in the middle decades of the 20th century. His subsequent research and writing explores changing meanings of property in urban South Asia.
RAVI REBBAPRAGADA
Executive Director- Samata, India
Ravi Rebbapragada is the Executive Director of Samata. Samata was instrumental in winning a historical Judgment on behalf of tribal people of India in 1997 from the Supreme Court of India that is popularly called the Samata Judgment. Samata’s current projects include the Balamitra Tribal Education Project that is funded by the Sir Dorabji Tata Trust and the Mining Information Clearing House of India (MICI) aims at developing a community resource guide to understand mining projects so that local communities can take informed decisions. Rebbapragada was recently appointed as a member of the Steering committee on empowerment of scheduled tribes for formulation of the twelfth Five Year Plan (2012-2017) by the Planning Commission of India.
M. VIJAYABASKAR
Assistant Professor, Madras Institute of Development Studies, Chennai, India
M. Vijayabaskar is a faculty at the Madras Institute of Development Studies, Chennai. His research interests fall broadly in the realm of political and social economy. Specifically he works on regional industrialization processes and labor regimes, with emphasis on organizational forms, technologies and labor processes.
MATILDE ADDUCI
Research Fellow, Department of Political Studies, University of Turin, Italy
Dr Matilde Adduci is Research Fellow at the Department of Political Studies, University of Turin, Italy. She attained a MSc degree in Development Studies at SOAS, University of London, and a PhD degree in ‘Civilization, Society and Economy of the Indian subcontinent’ at the University of Rome ‘La Sapienza’, Italy. She completed a post-doctoral programme at the Department of Political Studies, University of Turin, Italy. Her research work focuses on the impact of neoliberalism in the Indian state of Orissa. Her recent publications include ‘Neoliberal Wave Rocks Chilika Lake, India: Conflict over Intensive Aquaculture from a Class Perspective’, Journal of Agrarian Change and ‘Neoliberalism and Class Reproduction in India: The Political Economy of Privatisation in the Mineral Sector in the Indian State of Orissa’, Forum for Social Economics.
SALIL TRIPATHI
Director of Policy, Institute for Human Rights and Business, London
Salil Tripathi is Director of Policy at the Institute for Human Rights and Business in London. He was earlier a researcher at Amnesty International (1999‑2005) and a policy adviser at International Alert (2006‑2008). At Amnesty International, he co-wrote policy papers on complicity, privatization, corruption, and sanctions, and he was part of research missions to Nigeria and Bosnia‑Herzegovina. He also represented Amnesty International at the early negotiations leading up to the creation of the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme, and had been actively involved with the Voluntary Principles for Security and Human Rights from its formation till 2008. He has worked closely with a group of researchers convened by FAFO, which led to the publication of the Red Flags. He has contributed chapters to books on business and human rights, and spoken at universities in Asia, Europe, Africa, and the United States. He has been visiting fellow (non-resident) at the Harvard Kennedy School. He is also on the board of the English PEN and chairs its Writers-in-Prison Committee. Mr Tripathi is also a writer. His articles have been published widely in newspapers and magazines in the United States, Europe, and Asia. He was among the winners of the Bastiat Prize in New York in November 2011. He graduated with an MBA from the Amos Tuck School of Business Administration at Dartmouth College, US. He is author of Offense: The Hindu Case (Seagull, University of Chicago Press, 2009) about Hindu nationalism, free expression, and censorship. He was born in Bombay, India.
USHA RAMANATHAN
Independent Law Researcher
Dr. Usha Ramanathan works on the jurisprudence of law, poverty and rights. She writes and speaks on issues that include the Bhopal Gas Disaster, mass displacement, eminent domain, civil liberties, beggary, criminal law, custodial institutions, the environment, judicial process. She has been tracking and engaging with the UID project and has written and debated extensively on the subject. Her work draws heavily upon non-governmental experience in its encounters with the state, a 6 year stint with a law journal as reporter from the Supreme Court, engagement as contributing expert with institutions including the WHO (2003-07), the International Commission of Jurists (2006-08), Amnesty International (2004-07) and Rights and Democracy, Canada (2004-06). Some of her writings can be found at https://www.ielrc.org/.
GILLIAN CARR-HARRIS
Independent Scholar
Jill Carr-Harris has lived in India for more than twenty-five years. As a Canadian who has been permanently settled in India, Jill has had a wide range of experiences - she has worked for the United Nations Development Program, the Canadian International Development Agency, and numerous Indian NGOs. In the past ten years, she has worked with a non-violent (Gandhian) social movement known as EktaParishad. Jill has completed a Master’s Degree in Adult Education and Community Development. She has expertise particularly in Gandhian social movement theory, as well as on land issues in India and in women’s development.
AMITENDU PALIT
Visiting Senior Research Fellow, Institute of South Asian Studies (ISAS),
National University of Singapore, Singapore
Dr Amitendu Palit is an economist specializing in economic development and political economy. His research interests include comparative development dimensions of Chinese and Indian economies, international trade, land and labor markets and sustainable development. He has been with the Institute of South Asian Studies (ISAS) in the National University of Singapore for almost four years now. His latest book China-India Economics: Challenges, Competition and Collaboration (2011: Routledge, UK) has just been published. The book examines the common development challenges facing China and India and the competitive and collaborative outcomes which these produce. His earlier book (co-authored), Special Economic Zones in India: Myths and Realities (2008: Anthem Press) examines the dilemmas surrounding growth of modern SEZs and industrial enclaves in India, particularly land acquisition. Dr Palit has several other academic publications including journal articles and edited books. He is a columnist for India’s leading daily Financial Express and writes regularly for the Wall Street Journal, China Daily and Business Times. Earlier, he was in the Indian Economic Service and spent almost a decade (1996-2006) in India’s Ministry of Finance handling policies pertaining to external trade, industry and infrastructure development.
AMLANJYOTI GOSWAMI
Consultant, Indian Institute for Human Settlements, India
Amlanjyoti Goswami is a consultant at the Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS). He holds an LL.M degree from Harvard Law School, an LL.B and a B.A. in Sociology from the University of Delhi, where he received the university gold medal.
Amlan earlier served as an advocate at the chambers of Harish Salve (Senior advocate, Supreme Court of India); in the law firm, Amarchand Mangaldas; as research associate to Prof. James Gustave Speth at Yale University on International Environmental law; and as external consultant to the World Bank in Washington DC. At the National Knowledge Commission, he worked on cross-cutting policy linkages in higher education, legal education, entrepreneurship, innovation, IP as well as folklore in north-east India.
Amlan’s research interests include the following: cross-cutting linkages in urban law, politics and governance; visions, laws and policies for Higher Education in India; inter-disciplinary and inclusive learning in knowledge societies, including epistemology and narrative perspectives; the uses, values and discontents of modernity. He is also an Inlaks scholar and an Asia 21 Fellow.
NAMITA WAHI
S.J.D. Candidate, Harvard Law School
Namita Wahi is S.J.D candidate at Harvard Law School. Her doctoral dissertation examines how the Supreme Court of India has, over the last sixty years, managed tensions between the right to property and the state’s power to acquire property for the purposes of redistribution and economic development. During her S.J.D, Namita has worked on projects with PRS Legislative Research, New Delhi where she wrote papers on campaign finance and parliamentary reform for the first PRS Annual Conference and provided legal assistance to FishMARC, an organization seeking to protect traditional rights of fishermen against displacement by the Mundra Port and Special Economic Zone and other power projects in Gujarat, India. Prior to her S.J.D, Namita worked as a litigator at Davis Polk and Wardwell in New York, where she practiced primarily in the areas of bankruptcy, securities and pro bono criminal defense and asylum law. Namita has clerked with Justice R.C. Lahoti, former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of India. She holds an LL.M. from Harvard Law School and B.A.LL.B. (Hons.) degrees from National Law School, Bangalore. Her representative publications include “India: Citizens, Courts and the Right to Health: Between Promise and Progress?” Litigating Health Rights: Can Courts Bring More Justice to Health? (Harvard University Press, 2011) (coauthored with Sharanjeet Parmar) and “Human Rights Accountability of the IMF and the World Bank: A Critique of Existing Mechanisms and a Theory of Horizontal Accountability”, 12 U.C. Davis J. Intl L. & Poly (2006).
AJAY DANDEKAR
ProfessorSchool of Social Sciences, Central University Gujarat, India
Ajay Dandekar is Professor, School of Social Sciences, Central University Gujarat, on deputation from the Institute of Rural Management Anand. (IRMA). Professor Dandekar traverses the worlds of research and policy analysis. His research interests include early medieval history, left insurgency in India, agrarian crisis, rights of denotified and nomadic communities, and pastoralism and pastoral nomadism in South Asia. His publications include the Mythos and the Logos of the Warlis: A tribal worldview and Bharatiya Itihaske Strota: I & II that he co-wrote with ShereenRatnagar. Professor Dandekar has also written many articles on denotified tribes and also on the agrarian crisis and farmers’ suicide.
A. R. VASAVI
Independent Scholar
Professor A.R. Vasavi is a Social Anthropologist with interests in agrarian and ruralstudies, sociology of India, and educational studies. She was previouslywith the National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore and is currentlyan independent scholar based in Bangalore. Her books include, Harbingersof Rain: Land and Life in South India (1999); and two edited volumes, Inan Outpost of the Global Economy (co-edited with Carol Upadhya); and TheInner Mirror: Translations of Kannada Writings on Society and Culture (2009). Her book, Suicides and the Predicament of Rural India is forthcoming.
VIPUL MUDGAL
Director, Publics and Policies Programme, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), Delhi
Vipul Mudgal is the Director, Publics and Policies Programme at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), Delhi, where he is also heading the Inclusive Media for Change, a Ford Foundation funded project, which works to build bridges between mainstream media and rural India’s multiple crises.He has earlier held senior editorial positions at the Hindustan Times, India Today, BBC World Service and Asia Times in India, U.K., and Thailand. He has edited Lucknow and Jaipur editions of the Hindustan Times and headed the paper’s Research and Insight team for several years. As a political commentator he specialised on political and social violence and issues of democracy and sustainable development. He has extensively covered issues of marginalised communities in rural areas and India’s agrarian crises. He has conducted extensive media research and over a dozen nationwide surveys to determine how people make sense of political, cultural and social processes around them. VipulMudgal was awarded doctorate in Media Sociology by Leicester University, U.K., in 1995 on media and political violence. He was also awarded the Nehru Centenary British Fellowship in 1991 and US Govt’s Jefferson Fellowship by the East-West Centre, Hawaii, in May 2003. He has presented academic seminars at the universities of Oxford (Queen Elizabeth Hall), Cambridge (Trinity College), Leicester (CMCR), and Hawaii (East-West Centre) among many other places. He is frequently invited for lectures, particularly on democratic responses to terrorism, at the Administrative Staff Colleges, communication courses for senior Armed Forces Officers and at the National Police Academy, Hyderabad. The Publics and Policies Programme focuses on issues of participatory democracy and mobilises academic knowledge and research for policy making. As the director of the programme Vipul also works on issues of development alternatives, food security, land and displacement, and transparency in legislative processes.