Nivedhitha Kalyanaraman
New Delhi, Delhi| Grant Category: | Fulbright-Nehru Master’s Fellowships |
| Project Title: | NA |
| Field of Study: | International Legal Studies |
| Home Institution: | Independent Lawyer, New Delhi, Delhi |
| Host Institution: | Harvard University , Cambridge, MA |
| Grant Start Month: | August 2025 |
| Duration of Grant: | One year |
Brief Bio:
Nivedhitha is a Lawyer specializing in Constitutional Law. She graduated with a BA LLB from Alliance University, Bangalore in 2014, where she secured the gold medal for academic excellence.
She served as a Law Clerk and Research Associate to Dr. Justice Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud, the former Chief Justice of India, for nearly four years. She worked on crucial constitutional issues. She assisted the Chief Justice on the cases relating to the challenge to Electoral Bonds, the sub-classification within the Scheduled Castes, the right to marriage of queer persons, the special status of the National Capital Territory of Delhi, the minority status of Aligarh Muslim University, the challenge to the abrogation of special status to Jammu and Kashmir, and the ban on Media One, among others. During her clerkship tenure, she also worked on drafting the Handbook on Combating Gender Stereotypes and the Sensitization Module for the Judiciary on LGBTQIA+, both published by the Supreme Court of India. She is currently working on a project on electoral democracy at the Vidhi Center for Legal Policy, New Delhi.
As a Fulbright-Nehru Master’s fellow, Nivedhitha is studying constitutional law and philosophy with a focus on the law of democracy. She wishes to identify the social, political, and legal structures that dilute electoral democracy during her study in the United States. After returning to India, Nivedhitha plans to work towards strengthening the democratic process through impactful legal and policy interventions.