Chitra is a dynamic and outcome-oriented professional with a distinguished career in academia, research, and policy formulation. With a Ph.D. from Centre for West Asian Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, Chitra has demonstrated a deep commitment to advancing academic standards and offering valuable insights in policy circles. Throughout her career, Chitra has excelled in research and analysis, project coordination, grant writing, and stakeholder engagement. She is adept at developing cutting-edge curricula, coordinating field trials, and analyzing complex datasets. Her academic journey, highlighted by a thesis on “Migration to the Gulf and its Impact on Tamil Nadu 1991-2010,” underscores the expertise in migration patterns and regional development.
Professionally, Chitra has made significant contributions as a Non-Resident Associate at the Middle East Institute – New Delhi, collaborating with leading experts to analyze geopolitical developments. Her work as a Teaching Assistant at Mahatma Global Gateway and as a District Coordinator for the Tamil Nadu Migration Survey-2015 further highlights her proficiency in facilitating research, guiding students, and managing complex field projects. Additionally, Chitra’s tenure as a Project Coordinator at Human Rights Defense International showcases her ability to manage high-impact projects and drive advocacy on human rights issues. With a broad skill set that spans research, project management, grant writing, and policy advocacy, Chitra continues to contribute meaningfully to academic and policy frameworks, with a commitment to elevating standards and driving impactful change. Her research interests include migration and diaspora studies, development studies, sustainable environment, trafficking and human rights issues in Persian Gulf.
Dr. M.A. Kalam is Visiting Professor, Centre for Economic and Social Studies, Hyderabad. He was Dean, School of Liberal Arts Social Sciences, and Professor of Anthropology, SRM University, Amaravati, Andhra Pradesh. Also, he was founding Dean, Administration and Regulatory Affairs, and Professor of Anthropology, at Krea University, Sri City, Andhra Pradesh. Prior to that he was Professor of Applied Social Sciences (Adjunct Faculty) at Loyola Institute of Business Administration; Professor of Eminence and the founding Head of the Department of Social Work at Tezpur Central University, Assam; Professor and Head of Department of Anthropology, and Chairperson (Dean) School of Social Sciences, University of Madras.
Dr. Kalam was
- Rockefeller Resident Fellow at Duke University
- Human Rights Fellow at Harvard University
- Commonwealth Academic Staff Fellow at the London School of Economics.
- Besides, he was Visiting Professor at Universities in France, as also at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla.
Dr. Kalam’s doctoral research was on Family and Land Tenure among the Coorgs (Kodavas) in Karnataka. He has undertaken anthropological fieldwork among South Asians in England, the USA and France, as also in Sri Lanka and Thailand. He continues to pursue his work among Indians overseas.
Dr. Kalam has been a consultant to ministries of the government of India, DANIDA, and NACO Currently he is on the Board of Bharat Rural Livelihood Foundation.
He was Governing Council Member of the Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR). He also served as a Member of the Expert Group on Diversity Index, Ministry of Minority Affairs, Government of India.
Dr. Kalam continues to publish extensively, not just academically, but also in newspapers / news portals and periodicals.
Extracurricular Activities
Dr. Kalam has been a keen sportsman and has represented his college, university and state in Football, Hockey, Cricket and Athletics. He has also served as a qualified cricket umpire for the Tamil Nadu Cricket Association (TNCA).
Dr. Kalam was President of the Gwyer Hall Students Union in Delhi University.
He has participated in the TV rounds of the BBC Mastermind Quiz.
Dr. Kalam has won the UNESCO Photography Prize for Asia and the Pacific.
He is currently working as a Senior Project Associate at the DST Centre for Policy Research, School of Humanities and Social Science, National Institute of Science Education and Research (NISER), Bhubaneswar. He pursued an M.A. in Applied Economics from Pondicherry Central University and an M.Phil. in Applied Economics from the Centre for Development Studies (CDS), affiliated with Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). He recently submitted his Ph.D. thesis in CDS titled “Social Exclusion and Its Impact among the Older Persons: Experiences from Tamil Nadu.” He has quantitatively measured social exclusion using the factor analysis method with its multidimensionality features, which are often overlooked in Indian literature. The core work of his thesis was recently published in the Ageing International Journal in 2024 (Springer New York Publication). His research interests span a wide range of development economics, including ageing and development, health, social policy, labour, and MSMEs. Since 2016, he has been researching primarily issues related to ageing, such as health, social exclusion, and social policy. His other publication related to MSMEs was published in the journal SEDME (Small Enterprises Development, Management & Extension Journal): A worldwide window on MSME Studies (Sage Publication).
Dr. Tina Kuriakose Jacob is an alumnus of Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi and has a PhD in International Law. She is a development sector practitioner who has worked with diverse set of stakeholders both within government departments and with civil society partners. She currently works in the International Justice Mission—an organisation that seeks to build justice systems for the poorest and most vulnerable in India. Her policy and actionable inputs from field partners of IJM have led to creating institutional systems and governmental processes to help in cases of bonded labour, labour trafficking and unsafe internal migration through the Ministry of Labour and Employment, Ministry of Rural Development and National Human Rights Commission. She has previously served as Head of Research at the India Centre for Migration, a think tank in the Ministry of External Affairs, providing strategic and actionable research to improve the migration experience of Indians abroad. She has certified training in labour migration, gender and trade from the International Labour Organisation (ILO), Training Centre, Turin, Azim Premji University & Aajevika Bureau and Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT), New Delhi.
This is Jyoti, student of Political Science, having quality of learning and acquiring new
dimensions to understand subject in the spectrum of behavioural and interdisciplinary mode.
Moto of life is “earn while you learn” and “caring old people” (as much as I can). Started
working after completing M.A. Working as counsellor, office assistant, data collector,
researcher, Lecturer and consultant. Worked on the issue of Thalassemia, Phyilleria
(W.H.O.), Migration and safety nets (ODG), civil society and environmentalism, left behind
Women (CSDS), Student behaviour and School (Working with Fulbright), Financial
behaviour of Poor People (BFA), Political Participation of women in grass root politics
(PDF) etc. Understanding migration through the political lens and exploring new dimensions
on migration. Published a book on Civil Society and Environmentalism in India in 2015.
Presented few national and International papers and chapters in edited books too.
Dr. Irshad CV completed PhD in Economics (Specialisation: Health Economics) from the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras. He completed a bachelor’s and master’s in Economics from the University of Calicut. His Ph.D. thesis titled “Healthy Ageing in India: A Mixed Methods Approach” explored various research questions on healthy ageing in India using both quantitative and qualitative tools. His thesis work proposed the first multi- dimensional Healthy Ageing Index (HAI) for the health status measurement of older adults in India. Two of the core works of his thesis was published in the Journal of Population Ageing, an official journal of the Oxford Institute of Population Ageing, University of Oxford by Springer. His extended thesis work was also presented at a conference conducted by the Asian Development Bank, Manila, with full funding support from the Government of Japan. Besides his Ph.D. thesis work, he has been extensively collaborating with various researchers in Gerontology, and published works in reputed journals. In 2021, he received a research grant from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and International Institute for Population Sciences, Mumbai, to study social frailty status among older adults in India.
Azeera A Azeez is Vice President at Citibank Singapore, where she manages the divestiture of 13 consumer markets in APAC. She holds an MBA from IIM Kozhikode, and a BTech in Civil Engineering from NIT Warangal. She has worked across Asia in Singapore, Philippines, India and brings a comparative perspective to her research. Her research interests lie in Aging, and building an elderly-friendly society that allows older people to age in place within the community. Her other interests are in behavioral science, design, public policy, and how they interact to create social outcomes
Monika Bisht is a Senior Research Fellow with the International Institute of Migration and Development (IIMAD). She has worked as Research Fellow with the Global Research Forum on Diaspora and Transnationalism (GRFDT), an international research consortium on international migration and diaspora. She has completed her M.Phil. and PhD from the National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration, New Delhi. Her PhD is on Diaspora Philanthropy in Higher Education. Her research analyses the impact of philanthropic contributions of NRI alumni on the development of their alma maters. Previously she was a Research Associate with the Institute for Research and Development in School Education (IRDSE). At this institute, she has worked on educational status of school education in India. Before that, she was a part of India Centre for Migration, an autonomous research think-tank of Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India, where she looked into the matters related to labour migration policies of Colombo process countries. She has studied and worked on various issues related to labour and development since her post-graduation studies. She has a number of publications on international migration, diaspora, labour and education.
Professor Shoba Arun is Professor of International Sociology in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, the University of Greenwich, London, United Kingdom where is she is Lead for the Research Centre for Communities and Social Justice. Her research interests relate to global social identities and inequalities with a keen interest in migration studies and actively publishing in many academic journals, book and blogs. She is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and member of the British Sociological Association and the Global Studies Association, UK. She serves on the Editorial Board of the Work, Employment and Society Journal. Her latest book, Development and Gender Capital in India: Change, Continuity and Conflict in Kerala (Routledge, 2017) adopts a feminist Bourdieusian approach to the gendered economy and society of the Indian state of Kerala in the global south. She has just completed her role as UK Lead and PI for the Horizon 2020 Project on MICREATE- Migrant Children and Communities in a Transforming Europe, see www.micreate.eu). Previously, she was Professor of International Sociology at the Department of Sociology at the Manchester Metropolitan University, United Kingdom where she was Interim Director of the Research Centre for Applied Social Sciences, and co-convened the Migration and Interdiscplinary Global Studies Research Cluster at Manchester Metropolitan University.
Mohit is a PhD candidate in Anthropology at Harvard University, specialising in issues of labor, migration and climate change across the Indian Ocean, particularly between South Asia and the Gulf states of the Arabian peninsula. Before beginning his PhD, Mohit studied and worked at NYU Abu Dhabi (NYUAD), in the United Arab Emirates.