Professor Balveer Arora is Founder-Chairman of the Centre for Multilevel Federalism at the Institute of Social Sciences.
The Centre was founded in 2010 and is a member of the International Association of Centres for Federal Studies (IACFS). He was earlier professor of Political Science at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). He was Rector and Pro- Vice Chancellor of the University 2002-2005, responsible for Academic Affairs. He is currently President of the Board of Water for People India and Chairman, Governing Body, of the Blind Relief Association College for Special Education. He is Convenor of the Programmes Committee on Governance of the India International Centre.
Professor Arora obtained his Doctorate in Political Science from the University of Paris Pantheon-Sorbonne, after studying at St Stephen’s College Delhi and at Sciences Po Paris. He has been visiting professor at Sciences Po Paris, as well as at universities in Japan (Waseda), China (CNU) and the US (U Penn). He is a former president of the Alliance Française de Delhi and Founder-President of the
SciencesPo Alumni Association in India. He was Chair of the Governance and Nomination Committee of the Board of the NGO Plan International India (2008-17). He has written extensively on India’s federal democracy, its political institutions and processes over the past five decades.
He has been a member of the Scientific Councils of the French Network of Institutes of Advanced Studies (RFIEA) and the House of Human Sciences (FMSH), Paris. He is currently Vice-President of the Institut International Transcultura (Paris). He is on the Scientific Advisory Council of the Journal ‘Communications’ (Paris) and has delivered lectures in several prominent French universities. He was made a Knight in the Legion of Honour, the highest civilian honour of the French Republic, in July 2011. Earlier, he was appointed Officer in the National Order of Academic Laurels (2002).
Contact: balveerarora@issin.org
Dr. Amita Singh is currently President of NDRG, an Asia Pacific disaster Research Group. She is former Professor of Administrative Reforms and Emergency Governance at the Centre for the Study of Law and Governance at JNU. She has also been Founder Chairperson of the Special Centre for Disaster Research and Member Secretary of Institutional Ethics Review Board at JNU. The Asia-Pacific governance Network called NAPSIPAG is being led by her for many years as its Secretary General. Currently she is member of the International Network for Disaster Studies.
Her research collaborations on administrative reforms have been with the Department of Administrative Reforms (DARPG), Global Innovators Network, at the Kennedy School, Harvard University, IT for Women Initiative at Maryland University, Baltimore and several universities in Australia and South Asia.
She has twice (2006-07 & 2016) been awarded the Australia-India Council and Australian Government-Monash Fellowship .Recently in 2017-18 she was also a visiting professor at the American University at Washington DC and then at Harvard.She is also an Advisory Board member of UNESCO-Netexplo at Paris.
She has authored and edited many books and several national and international research papers. She is the ‘Series Editor’ of Palgrave-Macmillan ‘Global South Series on Disaster Management’ with five books in a row. Currently she is the lead editor for a global handbook on disaster studies by Springer -Nature.
She is recipient of many national and international awards including the 2014 Bangladesh’s National Award ‘Nawab Bahadur Syed Nawab Ali Chowdhury National Award’ in Dhaka. Her other awards in the past are the Delhi’s ‘Public Service Award’, NALSA’s ‘Social Justice Award’ , ‘Millennium Award for Women in Public Services’ and ‘e-Governance Award’ 2010. Prof. Singh is an ardent campaigner for the habitat rights of nonhuman species and leads the Gurgaon based organization called “Walk for Animals and Habitat”.
Ms Bidyut Mohanty, Ph. D ( Delhi), is the Head, Women’s Studies Programme, Institute of Social Sciences (ISS), New Delhi where she has pursued action research on women’s development and local self-government since 1980s.
As the principal coordinator of ISS and UNDP project on “Capacity Building of Elected Women Leaders in Local Government in India” conducting National Women’s Political Empowerment Day Celebrations from 1995 to 2015 she produced a series of publications on various aspects of Women and Panchayat Raj.
With research interest in the areas of Famine, Agrarian History and Decentralization Studies with a focus on Gender in a comparative perspective between India and China she combines grassroots activism with participatory research.
She has had many visiting assignments abroad including in Canada under Indo-Canadian Shastri Institute, Sweden under SASNET and South Africa.
During 2007-2011 she was a Visiting Professor at the Department of Global and International Studies, University of California at Santa Barbara where she continues as a Visiting Fellow.
She is the author of
- A Haunting Tragedy: Gender, Caste and Class in the 1866 Famine of Odisha (2022)
- Lakshmi The Rebel: Culture, Economy and Women’s Agency (2019).
She has also edited/coedited:
- Women Reinventing Development: The Odisha Story (2020)
- Our Money Our Lives : Microcredit in Cross-cultural perspective (2018)
- Panchayats, Women and Health for All (2014) and
- Urbanization in Developing Countries: Access to Basic Services and Community Participation (1993)
She is a well-known writer of short stories in Odia Her books include Kaluribenta (1986), Pulanga (1993) Gali Aili (2014) and Panikia (forthcoming).
You may write to Dr. Bidyut Mohanty at bidyutmohanty@issin.org