Political Science Archives

Anu Unny

Dr. Anu Unny is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Political Science, University of Kerala. She is also the Hon. Director of UGC-Nehru Studies Centre, University of Kerala. Before joining the University of Kerala, she worked as an Assistant Professor at the University of Delhi. She has served as a Member of the Board of Studies in Kerala and Kannur Universities.

Dr. Unny completed her M.A., M.Phil., and Ph.D. from the School of International Studies (SIS), Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), Delhi. Along with her teaching responsibilities, she acts as a research guide for the Ph.D. Programme in Political Science and International Relations at the University of Kerala. She is a recipient of the International Studies Association (ISA) grant to visit the US in 2017. She has many research papers to her credit in national and international journals. She has visited many countries, including the US, to present her research outcomes in conferences. She is an active participant in media discussions on international issues and a resource person for UGC Orientation and Refresher Programmes.

During her Fulbright-Nehru Fellowship, Dr. Unny will teach a course on the ‘Politics of Climate Change’ for students at the University of Washington. She will also engage in research at the University of Washington to understand the nuances of US domestic politics on climate change and to explore the challenges and possibilities in strengthening India-US climate cooperation. Apart from climate politics, Dr. Unny’s research interests lie in gender, human rights and Indian politics.

Ramu Manivannan

Dr. Ramu Manivannan currently serves as Honorary Chairperson at Multiversity – Centre for Indigenous Knowledge Systems, Kurumbapalayam, Vellore, Tamil Nadu. He combines research and teaching experiments in education, development, and democracy with special interest on indigenous knowledge systems. He is a writer, public commentator and contributor to several Indian print and visual media outlets.

Dr. Manivannan served as a Professor and Head of the Department of Politics and Public Administration, University of Madras for sixteen years. He taught in Hindu College, Delhi University for over 18 years before joining the University of Madras. He was a fellow of the United Nations University, Tokyo, Japan. He has been working with refugees from Tibet, Burma and Sri Lanka for over three decades in the areas of peace, education and development. He has founded fifteen non-formal schools for the children from tribal areas, stone quarry areas and the weavers’ community before building an alternative school, Garden of Peace, for rural children based on holistic education, located in Kurumbapalayam in Vellore, Tamil Nadu.

Dr. Manivannan’s Fulbright-Nehru project aims to undertake a comparative study on John Rawls, Amartya Sen and J. C. Kumarappa based on their works on justice and examine the implications of their ideas to the notions of democracy and development in India. Given the combination of teaching and research plan, he will also be teaching papers on democracy and development in India and South Asia, besides co-teaching a paper on the political economy of Brazil and India.

Malvika Maheshwari

Dr. Malvika Maheshwari is Associate Professor of Political Science at Ashoka University. She holds degrees in the discipline from Delhi University, Jawaharlal Nehru University, and she completed her doctorate from Sciences Po, Paris, in 2011. Prior to joining Ashoka, she taught South Asian politics at Sciences Po, Paris and Le Havre, and was a research associate at the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi.

Dr. Maheshwari’s research lies at the intersection of political thought and art practice, especially as it relates to phenomena like violence, power, democracy, and state capacity. Her first book, Art Attacks: Violence and Offence-taking India, was published in 2019 (Oxford University Press) and her research articles have been published in reputed journals, such as India Review, Raisons Politiques, Studies in Indian Politics, Economic and Political Weekly and The Arts Politic. She is a recipient of the Charles Wallace India Trust (University of Cambridge) and the Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Fund fellowships, among others.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Academic and Professional Excellence schloar, Dr. Maheshwari would be working on her second book project on the ‘National Akademies of Art and the Politics of Administering Aesthetics in Postcolonial India.’ In this project, she seeks to understand the political and intellectual origins, and the trajectory of the Sangeet Natak Akademi (SNA) for dance, music and theatre, Lalit Kala Akademi (LKA) for fine arts, and Sahitya Akademi (SA) for literature, established in mid-1950s. The research focuses on the institution’s history, its core principles, and internal contestations, and how its language, functioning and the ideological discourse supported interests of various state and central government policies, as much as shaping the complexities of the art world, and through it, ideas of citizenship and the public. Following a basic question–what did the Indian statesmen, particularly during the early years of India’s independence, want to do with the arts? –this work explores a critical sphere of state activity where art and politics coexist, compete but also in the process constitute one another, that is, in its role as an allocator: of resources, awards, buildings, legitimacy, among other things.

Venkat Raman Gundumella

Dr. G Venkat Raman is currently a Professor at the Humanities and Social Sciences Area, Indian Institute of Management, Indore. He is primarily a sinologist, with a focus on themes related to China’s interface with global governance. Apart from China studies, Prof. Raman has developed a keen interest in business ethics pedagogy through more than eleven years of his association with the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Indore and IIM Kozhikode.

Prof. Raman offers core courses like “Introduction to International Relations” to undergraduate students and “Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility” to postgraduate students. In addition, he offers elective courses like “Power Rivalries and Global Governance in the Twenty-first Century”, “Understanding the China Challenge”, and “Political Risk Management in an Uncertain World”.

Prof. Raman completed his doctoral studies at the School of Government, Peking University, Beijing. He is a fluent Mandarin speaker. He has served as a visiting fellow at the Center for BRICS Studies, Fudan University, Shanghai, and a visiting faculty member at ICN Business School, Nancy, France.

Prof. Raman has co-authored a paper published in the Journal of Business Ethics arguing for a novel pedagogy called the “Integrated Live Case Method”. He has also co-authored case studies at prestigious case centers like the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad, and China Europe International Business School, Shanghai. He is a member of the Board of Trustees, Azad Foundation, New Delhi, which works to financially empower women below the poverty line by training them in non-traditional livelihoods.

Shameer Modongal

Dr. Shameer Modongal completed his Ph.D. in international relations from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi. He also holds M.A and M.Phil. degrees in international relations from the same institution, as well as an M.A in political science from Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), New Delhi. Dr. Modongal’s scholarly achievements include qualifying for the Junior Research Fellowship and the National Eligibility Test of the University Grants Commission in international and area studies, as well as the National Eligibility Test in political science.

In the realm of academic publications, Dr. Modongal has made significant contributions, notably publishing two books in 2022: Islamic Perspectives on International Conflict Resolution: Theological Debates on the Israel-Palestinian Peace Process (Routledge) and Religion and Nuclear Weapons: A Study of Islamic Republic of Iran and Pakistan (Vij Books India). Additionally, he co-edited the book Counterterrorism and Global Security: Genesis, Responses and Challenges (Vij Books India) in 2021. He also serves as an editor or reviewer for many prestigious international journals, including the British Journal of Political Science (Cambridge University Press) and Cogent Social Sciences (Taylor and Francis).

As a Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research fellow at the American University, Washington, D.C., Dr. Modongal is engaged in exploring the dynamics between American Islamic scholars and organizations amidst conflicting interests of pro-Israel U.S. government policies and pro-Palestinian Muslim community interests. His research examines how the Islamic discourse in the U.S. shapes perceptions regarding the formation of Israel and the friendly relations of Muslim countries with it, as well as the discourse among Islamic scholars and organizations surrounding the support that the U.S. extends to Israel.

Kaushiki Arha

Kaushiki Arha is a Ph.D. candidate at the Centre for Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. She has a master’s in political science from the same centre, and a bachelor’s from Lady Shri Ram College for Women, University of Delhi. She is interested in researching the intersection of gender, politics, and law. Her doctoral project explores the politics of rape law reform in India with a focus on the Criminal Law Amendment Act, 2013. Her work seeks to investigate how rape myths enter legal discourse and its political implications for women demanding a world without sexual violence.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research fellow at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, Kaushiki is working with Prof. Vera Bergelson to develop a comparative analysis of the criminal justice systems in India and the United States of America with a focus on rape cases.