Faculty

Dr Anshuman Behera is a Professor and the Academic Head at the National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS), Bengaluru. At the NIAS, he is associated with the Conflict Resolution and Peace Research Programme in the School of Conflict and Security Studies. He is also a Visiting Professor at the Malviya Centre for Peace Research, Banaras Hindu University and a Non-resident Visiting Fellow at the Centre for National Security Studies, Ramaiah University of Applied Science, Bengaluru. His research and teaching interests are in the areas of Conflict Studies, Democracy, Development, Governance, and conflict, impact assessment of development projects and corporate social responsibilities, political theory, religious fundamentalism and terrorism in South Asia, internal security in India, and Natural resource management.

The important research projects that Dr Behera is presently conducting are: Impact assessment of the corporate social responsibility activities of the industries, especially the Oil India Limited (OIL) and the Numaligarh Refinery Limited (NRL) in Assam. These studies evaluate the social, political and the economic impacts of OIL and the NRL on the society. Similarly, the research study on the Natural Resource Management, Utilisation and Adaptation investigates the social and the ecological aspects of resource management and utilisation in the Western and Eastern Ghats of India. The NIAS Democracy Forum (NDF), an academic initiative conducts training programmes, workshops, lecture series and evidence-based research on various aspects of federalism, local governance and democratic participation in India. As a part of this initiative, Dr. Behera also conducts research on the issues of formal and informal decentralisation in Manipur and Mizoram and the Maoist affected states in Central and Eastern India.  

He teaches courses on ‘Theoretical Constructs of Understanding Conflict’, ‘Qualitative Research Methodology in Social Sciences’, and ‘Approaches to Conflict Resolution’. 

MB Rajani's research has two inter-related facets: analysing cultural landscapes using geospatial data to identify new features of archaeological interest and advancing the usage of such analysis towards preservation of built heritage in the face of rapid urbanization. Her primary scientific contribution has been to develop a methodology for detecting tell-tale signs of past human activities on landscapes from satellite imagery and integrating these findings with other spatial data to generate new inferences and novel hypotheses about the past. Her work has therefore expanded the field of archaeology to include the study of human impact on landscapes. 

Her recent book Patterns in Past Settlements (2021) aims at imparting this knowledge to larger research and academic communities.

She is a member of Indian National Young Academy of Science 2018-2022, a Young Affiliate 2019-2023 of The World Academy of Sciences and recipient of Rachapudi Kamakshi Memorial Young Geospatial Scientist Award 2011 and P.R. Pisharoty Memorial award 2019 awarded by the Indian Society of Remote Sensing

Dr. Srikumar M. Menon is an architect specializing in ancient and early architecture of the Indian subcontinent. After graduating from the Department of Architecture, T. K. M. College of Engineering in 1993, Srikumar spent 6 years in architectural practice at Bangalore as well as research on the design of astronomical observatories at the Inter University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Pune, before taking up teaching at the Faculty of Architecture, Manipal Institute of Technology, at Manipal. After teaching at Manipal for 15 years, he moved to the National Institute of Advanced Studies, where he is works as Associate Professor currently.

Srikumar’s academic interests focus on ancient architecture – prehistoric monuments, as well as later monuments, such as stupas and temples. His Ph. D. investigated Indian megaliths for possible intentional astronomical alignments and he was awarded the Prof. D. S. Achyutha Rao Memorial History Research Fellowship for the same, in 2007. Subsequently (2012-14), he was also awarded the Homi Bhabha Fellowship for studying “Ancient Landscapes of South India.” Under this project, he has studied the sites of the Malaprabha Valley, Hampi-Hire Benakal region and the Sannati-Sirival region, all in northern Karnataka, leading to deep insights about the continuity of commemorative traditions from prehistoric to later times, and the influence of prehistoric architecture on later monuments. He is the author of two books – Ancient Stone Riddles: Megaliths of the Indian Subcontinent and Comets: Nomads of the Solar System, both published by Manipal University Press.

Currently, in addition to continuing his work on megaliths and archaeoastronomy, Srikumar is also engaged in efforts to understand evolution of principles of construction and stone-working in early temple architecture, and the practice of architecture in Early Historic to Medieval Periods in India, including tracking early artisans of ancient India.

Prof Narendar Pani is an economist by training who takes a multidisciplinary approach to the Indian political economy issues. In this effort, he has relied on a method derived from the writings of MK Gandhi. Over the last three and a half decades, he has held positions in academia and the media. His books include, ‘Inclusive economics: Gandhian method and contemporary policy’ (Sage, 2002); ‘Redefining Conservatism: An essay on the bias of India’s economic reform’ (Sage, 1994); and ‘Reforms to pre-empt change: Land legislation in Karnataka’ (Concept, 1983). He is also one of the editors of ‘Bengaluru, Bangalore, Bengaluru: Imaginations and their times’ (Sage, 2010).  

He was a member of the Task Force on Manufacturing set up by the Government of Karnataka, 2013. 

He was a member of the Working Group set up by the Planning Commission, New Delhi, to review the performance of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act. 

He was a member of the Steering Committee for the Evaluation Study on Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) conducted by the Programme Evaluation Organization of the Planning Commission, New Delhi. 

He was a member of the Board of Governors of the Institute for Social and Economic Change, Bangalore, from 2003 to 2009. 

He was a member of the editorial advisory board of the Journal for Social and Economic Development, an academic journal brought out by the Institute for Social and Economic Change Bangalore, India, from its inception till 2009. 

He won the Citibank Pan Asia Journalism Award for 1992.  The award was given for writing on trade issues.  The piece that won the award was on the environment as a trade barrier.

Prakash Panneerselvam is an assistant professor in the International Strategic & Security Studies Programme at the National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS) in Bengaluru, India. He was the first visiting fellow at the Japan Maritime Self-Defence Force (JMSDF) Staff College in Tokyo. He has also been a visiting researcher at the Graduate School of Law, Kobe University, Japan. Furthermore, he holds the position of Non-Resident Scholar at the Research Institute for Indo-Pacific Affairs (RIIPA). He has received the Japan Foundation Indo-Pacific Partnership (JFIPP) Research Fellowship for 2023-2024, the Japan Foundation Fellowship in 2011, and the Okita Memorial Fellowship in 2008. Before joining NIAS, he worked with the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in the Defence & Aerospace Sector. He assisted a committee of experts with amendments to the Defence Procurement Procedure 2013 and formulation of the policy framework for the Defence Procurement Procedure. Prakash was also a trained merchant mariner. He holds an M.Phil. and PhD in International Politics from the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi, India.

Carol Upadhya, a social anthropologist, has researched and published widely on a range of social transformations related to development, economic change, urbanization, provincial capital, labour and migration in contemporary India. 

Prof. Upadhya was Co-director of the Provincial Globalisation and Speculative Urbanism projects at NIAS. She has received research grants from the National Science Foundation (USA), Azim Premji Foundation, Indian Council for Social Science Research (ICSSR), WOTRO Science for Global Development of the NWO (Netherlands), and the Indo-Dutch Programme on Alternatives in Development (Netherlands).

She has been a visiting scholar at the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Studies (SCAS), Uppsala, Sweden; Central European University, Budapest; Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, Goettingen, Germany; and the International Institute of Asian Studies, Amsterdam. 

Professor Upadhya’s latest publication is a co-edited volume (with Vinay Gidwani and Michael Goldman), Chronicles of a Global City: Speculative Lives and Unsettled Futures in Bengaluru (University of Minnesota Press, 2024). She is the author of Reengineering India: Work, Capital, and Class in an Offshore Economy (Oxford University Press, 2016) and co-editor of Provincial Globalization in India: Transregional Mobilities and Development Politics (Routledge, 2018). 

Upadhya is Co-editor of the Journal of South Asian Development and serves on the Editorial Board for Contributions to Indian Sociology.
 

SS Meenakshisundaram is a Post Graduate in Mathematics from Loyola College, Madras and holds a Ph.D. in Development Economics from Jamia Milia Islamia National University, New Delhi. He joined the Karnataka cadre of the Indian Administrative Service in 1968. During his career he had held a number of assignments including Secretary, Rural Development and Panchayati Raj department when Karnataka launched its new system of panchayatiraj institutions. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex, United Kingdom for one year. Besides several articles and papers on Panchayatiraj and Rural Development, he has also published a book on "Decentralization in Developing Countries" with special reference to Nigeria , China and India during 1994. After working as Principal Secretary to the Chief Minister of Karnataka and Joint Secretary to three Prime Ministers of India, he also served as Adviser in the Planning Commission and Secretary in the Ministry of Rural Development. He was also the Dy. Chairman of the State Planning Board when Karnataka was under the President's Rule. Currently, he is the Chairman of MYRADA, a voluntary organization in the field of building people's institutions for development and a Visiting Professor at Institute of Social and Economic Change, Bangalore. His research interests include rural development, poverty alleviation, voluntary action and decentralized governance

Joined NIAS on 1st September 2002. Most significant research contribution: Study on non-human primates contributing to significant understanding of human sociality. Dr. Sindhu Radhakrishna holds a master's degree in psychology and a doctorate in animal behaviour. 

Her research interests are in the fields of primatology, behavioral ecology and conservation biology, and her work has focused on gaining a better understanding of social behaviour and communication in nocturnal primates. She was awarded the INSA Young Scientist's Award in recognition of the significance of her doctoral research on the behaviourial ecology of the Slender loris, a nocturnal primate found in southern India

Binoy is a cognitive scientist interested in the science of science communication and conservation of the megafishes.

He studies science communication ecosystems under the lens of cognitive science with the aim of developing strategies for the effective dissemination of science to promote scientific temper and positive behaviour change in multicultural societies. Cognitive and noncognitive factors shaping sensemaking of scientific information, interconnection between the risk communication and protective action decision making by the people during natural disasters (cyclones and landslides), determinants of public perception and acceptance of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and novel medical technologies, the interplay between mental models of climate change,  psychological distance and climate misinformation management are the major topics of research being pursued by his team. Binoy explores the role of participatory science communication programmes (walks, citizen science) in promoting scientific thinking and public trust in science and designs modules integrating traditional pedagogies with the tools and techniques of science communication to make science learning effort-free for the school children.

Binoy is developing a comprehensive plan for the conservation of freshwater megafishes (Mahseer) of India. He is studying the determinants of  behavioral and cognitive flexibility, learning abilities, decision making strategies and behavioral deficiency in the juveniles of Mahseers used in reintroduction and restocking programmes targeting rejuvenation and restoration of their depleting natural populations. Parallelly the studies focusing on beliefs, attitudes, values and behaviours of multiple stakeholders involved in megafish conservation are also conducted to develop public awareness programmes and policy recommendations to ensure the protection of these keystone species facing the threat of extermination. 

Binoy coordinates the activities of ‘Student Scientist’ – a unique initiative working for promoting bidirectional communication between scientists and students.  He is a research affiliate in the Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study, George Mason University, USA, and was the Secretary of the Ethological Society of India (ESI) one of the oldest organisation of the behavioural biologists in India. He  was selected as the  Inter-Continental Academia (ICA) Fellow by UBIAS, a consortium of 46 institutes of advanced studies located in various continents. He was the scientific observer and mentor to the Indian team secured top position in the medal tally for the first time in International Biology Olympiad (IBO-2023). Binoy is passionate about Yoga and Martial arts and has been a keen practitioner.

For further details see: https://social-cognition.weebly.com/