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Dr Pratima Murthy, Director and Senior Professor of Psychiatry at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS), Bengaluru has over three and a half decades of experience in the field of addiction and mental health. She is an alumnus of Bangalore Medical College. She completed her Diploma and MD in Psychological Medicine from NIMHANS and has a Diploma in Psychological Medicine from the University of Manchester, UK. She is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, Glasgow, UK. She has an honorary doctorate from the Sathya Sai University of Health Sciences and the YSR University of Health Sciences.

As the Director, NIMHANS, she has undertaken many innovations in patient care, training and research. She has undertaken several rights-based initiatives for persons with mental illness, provided leadership to Tele-MANAS and the NMHS 2, served as an expert to WHO for several guidelines for mental health and substance use. As an addiction specialist, she has made seminal contributions in clinical care, training, research and policy. She has expanded addiction services, facilitated digital interventions and initiated post graduate programmes. She has about 400 research publications, won several awards and mentored several post graduate students.

I am a comparative psychologist working at the intersection of primatology and cognitive science. I completed my PhD in Comparative-Developmental Psychology at the University of Portsmouth in 2021 and subsequently held postdoctoral positions at the University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland, and the Institut des Sciences Cognitives Marc Jeannerod in France.

My research centres on naturally occurring behaviour in humans and other primates, examining how communication, tool use, and social interaction develop and vary across ecological and cultural contexts. Drawing on long-term field research, I combine fine-grained behavioural analysis with computational modelling of sequential structure to investigate hierarchical organisation, vocal flexibility, imitation, and the relationship between action and meaning.

At the National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bengaluru, in collaboration with Professor Anindya Sinha, I develop conceptual critiques of comparative cognition, examining how assumptions about objectivity, anthropocentrism, and species boundaries shape interpretation in animal cognition research. This is combined with empirical work in North-East India examining macaque behaviour across a gradient from anthropogenic temple–river systems to primary forest. Simultaneously, we are initiating passive acoustic monitoring of western hoolock gibbons in the Eastern Himalayas. I also founded the Perspectives Collective Journal, an open-access platform advancing more inclusive approaches to knowledge production.

Vishnu Chandra is a senior ICT and Geo-Spatial Technology leader with over three decades of experience in the Government of India. An alumnus of Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee (formerly University of Roorkee), he holds MSc (Physics), M.Phil. (Instrumentation), and M.Tech (Electronics & Communication) degrees.

He served as Deputy Director General at the National Informatics Centre (NIC), leading Geo-Spatial Technology & Services and key National ICT divisions. He guided major initiatives for ministries including Housing & Urban Affairs, Power, Coal, MNRE, and Environment, Forest & Climate Change. He also held financial leadership roles as Additional Financial Advisor, NIC, and served on the Board of NIC Services Inc (NICSI) and Geospatial Delhi Limited.

For over 25 years, he led NIC’s GIS initiatives, developing the cloud-based multi-layer GIS platform “Bharatmaps,” now embedded in flagship e-governance projects such as SVAMITVA, e-Dharti, PARIVESH, National Power Portal, and GIS-based financial inclusion systems.

He later served as Advisor (Geo-ICT & Spatial Planning) to the Ministry of Panchayati Raj, contributing to SVAMITVA and National Geospatial Policy-2022 initiatives. He currently serves as Independent Director at SatSure Analytics India Private Limited, Bengaluru and DRIISHYA, A Haryana Government Undertaking.

LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vishnu-chandra-6362a98?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=android_app 

Shabari Rao is an artist and educator from Bangalore, India. Her work engages with interdisciplinary research on embodiment. As an artist, she performs, directs, curates, teaches, and writes. Over the past 20 years, her work has been supported and presented at conferences, festivals, residencies, and in publications in cities as diverse as Shanghai, London, New York, Vienna, Oslo, Cape Town, and Melbourne, among others. Shabari has held several academic positions where she designs and delivers interdisciplinary courses in higher education settings. Most recently, she was an Adjunct Assistant Professor at BITS School of Law and a Visiting Faculty at Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. Previously, she was a founding faculty member at RV University, where she headed the Performing Arts programme in the School of Liberal Arts and Sciences. She has completed her PhD at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in Mumbai, where her research focuses on Embodied Pedagogy in Mathematics Teaching. She has presented her doctoral research at international STEM and Mathematics Education conferences, where her contributions have been very well received. She also holds an MA (with distinction) in Arts and Education from the Royal Academy of Dance (UK), a professional diploma in Contemporary Dance Studies from the Trinity Laban Conservatoire (UK), and a BA in Kathak and Choreography from Bangalore University.

Akhil Mythri adopts a multidisciplinary approach to climate change research spanning the physics, ecology and economics of climate change. At NIAS, he works with the Energy, Environment and Climate Change Programme of the School of Natural Sciences and Engineering. He has a background in both the natural and social sciences, with an MSc in Physics from the University of Mysore, Mysuru and an MSc in Climate Change and Sustainability Studies from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai.

Earlier, he worked with the computational biology group at the Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai where he did his MSc dissertation in stochastic nonlinear dynamics. He has worked as project assistant at the National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bangalore studying observed and projected trends in bioclimatic variables in forest biomes of India. He has earlier been at NIAS as project associate, working on the preparation of India’s Third National Communication to the UNFCCC, and analyzing the global mitigation pathways used in the Sixth Assessment of the IPCC. Prior to joining NIAS as a PhD scholar, he worked briefly in the Monsoon Dynamics lab at Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay, studying energetics-based approaches to modeling the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone and the monsoons.

Akhil’s doctoral research focuses on land use change and climate change, with both science and policy  components:

1. The representation of carbon fluxes due to land use change in earth system models: evaluating  its accuracy and formulating methods for its improvement,

2.  The development of future land use scenarios based on the principle of equity, prioritizing the developmental needs of the Global South. 

His areas of research interest also include climate change impacts in the Himalayan mountain region, development of early warning systems for flood and heat extremes, and Global South perspectives in international climate change negotiations.

Apart from formal academic and research training, he has had extensive on-ground fieldwork experience in Karnataka and in Uttarakhand Himalaya, working with social movements and grassroots organizations. Along with working on climate change, Akhil enjoys mountaineering and has trained at the National Institute of Mountaineering and Adventure Sports (NIMAS), Arunachal Pradesh.

Mr. Prasanna Khanvilkar is a doctoral student in the School of Humanities at the National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS), conducting research on donative patronage during the early historical Western Deccan. He holds a Master's degree in Ancient Indian Heritage Culture & Archaeology from Deccan College Post-Graduate Research Institute, Pune. His professional experience includes serving as a Research Assistant in the Department of Palaeography, Epigraphy & Numismatics at the Indian Institute of Heritage, Noida (Formerly National Museum Institute), and working as a research intern on the Government of India's Department of Science and Technology project on "Scientific Investigation, Digital Documentation and Conservation of Petroglyphs of Konkan."

His research interests include Ancient Indian History and Culture, ancient and medieval Indian scripts, and environmental archaeology.

Dr. Ravi Bhandari is a distinguished economist whose extensive career has been marked by a relentless pursuit of knowledge and an impact on the world of economics. For over three decades, he has been at the forefront of teaching economic development, international financial markets, and world economic history.

Professor Ravi has taught these subjects at the leading universities around the world where he has earned accolades as an exceptional educator, consistently winning the best teacher award for his outstanding contributions to learning across the social sciences. 

His commitment to excellence transcends borders as he shares a wealth of knowledge with colleagues and students across the globe, teaching and conducting research in a number of countries including India, Nepal, Greece, Costa Rica, and the United States.

Beyond the classroom, Ravi’s  global foresight and analytical insights have earned him widespread international recognition. His timely warnings on economic crises – from the Asian currency crisis of 1997 to the global crisis of 2001 to the Great Recession 2007/2008 —  solidified his reputation in the field. 

Professor Ravi current research focuses on the unholy alliance of the unraveling global debt crisis, retaliatory tariffs/sanctions, and the epic AI bubble. Professionally, he advises clients on how best to avoid and hedge against the upcoming Global Depression, what he calls the mother of all crashes.

AVM Pawan Kumar graduated from National Defence Academy in 1988 and was commissioned as a Fighter Pilot in Indian Air Force in June 1989. The Air Officer has more than 3000 hours of accident-free flying and has flown Hunters, Jaguars and MIG-27s. He has had an illustrious career with various important assignments in service and been part of all the important courses and exercises in India and abroad. He was also Defence Attache to Czech Republic with concurrent accreditation to Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Serbia, Bulgaria and Greece. He played a major role in various bilateral / Multilateral engagements including various exercises with friendly foreign countries.
Air Vice Marshal Pawan Kumar served as Director General, Defence Space Agency before superannuating on 31 Aug 25. As DG Defence Space Agency, he was instrumental in formulation of Military Space Doctrine and handled all aspects related to space surveillance, communication, PNT, SSA and space weather amongst others.