India Fellows Years: Indian Fellows 2022-2023

Parul Mehra

Ms. Parul Mehra graduated from the National Law School of India University (NLSIU), Bangalore in 2017 with a bachelor’s in law and social sciences. She was awarded the Sh. Venkatramanna Gold Medal for excellence in labor law and headed two student bodies – the International Affairs Society and the Academic Support Program.

Ms. Mehra started her career with the United Nations (UN) in Nairobi, Kenya in 2018, where she joined the International Organization for Migration (IOM) to support efforts to secure the release of thousands of irregular migrants in detention across East Africa. She then moved to Somalia where she supported the federal government in overhauling the immigration and passport law. Subsequently, she led the development of a training program on migrant worker protection for labor inspectors in Libya alongside managing a nation-wide market assessment to inform Libya’s labor migration policy. Parul has recently rejoined IOM in Kenya as an International Migration Law Expert where she is leading training initiatives on migrant rights for a variety of stakeholders including journalists and immigration officers.

Ms. Srivastava is also an adept swimmer, diver, and paddle board surfer. Combining her passion for water sports with environmental conservation, she is involved in several coastal community conservation initiatives in India, Kenya, and Tunisia.

A master’s in international legal studies from Harvard Law School will allow Ms. Srivastava to further hone her knowledge and skills in supporting better governance of human migration. She hopes to leverage this knowledge to improve access to basic rights for migrant workers in India and other developing country contexts.

Arushi Malik

Dr. Arushi Malik is an Indian Administrative Service officer with over 16 years of experience. She is a medical doctor turned civil servant and is the recipient of a prestigious fellowship at the Pembroke College, University of Oxford.

As District Collector and Magistrate, she has headed the district administration of six districts: Ajmer, Bharatpur, Jhunjhunu, Tonk, Chittorgarh and Dungarpur. She has vast experience in policymaking and program implementation at the grassroots level as Special Secretary, Health; Commissioner Panchayati Raj; and Secretary, Animal Husbandry. Her work as Director, Sanitation (Swachh Bharat Mission) to improve the sanitation coverage of Rajasthan, a predominantly arid state larger than Finland, was lauded at the national level and by international agencies. She created a strong enabling environment and formulated a community-led approach, successfully increasing the rural sanitation coverage and achieving ODF (Open Defecation Free) status, covering over 6.8 million households.

Dr. Malik is the Prime Minister’s Award Recipient for Excellence in Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Deployment Gandhi Act (MGNREGA) implementation in Dungarpur district, with 530 districts competing in the country. She received the National Certificate of Excellence for her work with the Swachh Bharat Mission (National Sanitation Mission). For the same, she was selected for screening for the Prime Minister’s Award for Excellence in Public Administration. In 2009, she became a Guinness Book of World Record holder for leading a team of 300 people to plant 611137 trees in 24 hours.

Her area of interest is maternal health and designing effective prevention and treatment strategies to address maternal morbidity, mortality, and low birth weight. During the Fulbright-Nehru program, a graduate degree in public health will offer her a new approach to address the public health issues in India. She is also keenly passionate about global health: emphasizing an equitable approach to health with a focus on socioeconomic health determinants, using past responses to health issues as an opportunity to learn.

Amitha Jayaram

Dr. Amitha Jayaram is a medical doctor and a career civil service officer in the Indian Audit and Accounts Department, headed by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India, with eight years of experience in public sector audit and government accountability. She graduated with an MBBS from Vijayanagara Institute of Medical Sciences Karnataka and was subsequently selected to the Indian Audit and Accounts Service in 2013. She is a recipient of the CAGs National Award for Innovation and Excellence in Public Audit.

She has led projects examining the efficacy of government schemes/programs and providing evidence-based recommendations for governance reforms. With a primary focus on local governance and environment and sustainable development, her impact areas include water conservation, waste management, welfare of socially disadvantaged, the right to education, rural and urban infrastructure, mineral resources, and energy security. She has delivered capacity building training on Environment Audit for international participants from more than 30 INTOSAI member nations.

Her research interest is in policy measures towards empowerment of local governments, market instruments for sustainable waste and water management, mitigating adverse impacts of large infrastructure and mining projects. She has trained for several years in Bharatanatyam dance and Carnatic music and is also an astronomy enthusiast.

Dr. Jayaram is currently a Fulbright-Nehru Master’s fellow at Harvard University pursuing a master’s in public administration to enhance her exposure to challenges and international best practices in the public sector that equip her to step up efforts towards accountability, transparency, and good governance, in tune with latest developments in various sectors.

Praveen Gedam

A qualified doctor with an MBBS, Dr. Praveen Gedam joined the Indian Administrative Service in 2002. He has held various important positions in his career. Before coming to the center, he served the State Government of Maharashtra in various capacities. He served as the Transport Commissioner of Maharashtra, where he spearheaded a massive computerization exercise. Dr. Gedam has also served as the Chief Administrator of numerous cities and districts.

At the cutting-edge field level, Dr. Gedam was responsible for critical government interventions concerning socio-economic development, including those in public health. He is known for the turnaround in maternal and child health indicators in Latur, one of the most backward districts in the state, due to targeted interventions, systematic medical check-ups, and massive community mobilization exercises. In 2015, he was entrusted with organizing and managing the mega-event of Kumbhmela in Nashik which is one of the largest human congregations on earth. This has the distinction of having zero missing persons, zero casualties, zero outbreaks.

In his role in the National Health Authority, Dr. Gedam is the Additional Chief Executive Officer of the National Health Authority, tasked with the policy formulation and implementation of two flagship health schemes of the central government: Ayushman Bharat – Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB PM-JAY), the world’s largest government-sponsored health insurance scheme, and the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM), the mission to develop the digital health ecosystem within India. In the future, Dr Gedam intends to continue working in the field of social development with a particular focus on public health.

Dr. Gedam also pursues his passion for music, hiking, and painting. He has trekked and camped extensively across the Western Ghats and Himalayas and organized numerous cultural festivals.

J. Ganesan

Dr. J. Ganesan is a trained dental surgeon from the Tamil Nadu Government Dental College in Chennai. However, his passion in public service brought him into the government. He was a topper in the extremely competitive civil service examination 2005, acquiring an all-India rank of 4, and was allotted the Indian Administrative Service.

Since then, he has held multiple positions with distinction in the state government of Haryana. His conviction in “Antyodaya”, along with a pragmatic approach to governance, has led to him making substantial changes in service delivery across sectors. He has been a harbinger in introducing information technology and designing robust systems adept in delivery. The digital agricultural crop procurement introduced in 2018 modernized the archaic paper-book processes, jettisoned middlemen and ensured direct benefit transfer to one million farmers in Haryana. He received the award of excellence of the Computer Society of India from the Chief Minister of Odisha in 2020 for this project.

Dr. Ganesan is also widely acknowledged for his contribution in the field of school education. In addition, he is the proud recipient of the ‘Good Governance Award-2021’ from the Chief Minister of Haryana for the innovative “Super-100” program that empowers government school children to pursue higher education in premier institutions of the country. Dr. Ganesan is also credited with fronting a major ed-tech project aimed at providing computing tablets, digital content through personalized and adaptive learning algorithms and internet data to 800,000 government school children.

Dr Ganesan intends to move to the Government of India to take up assignments in the information technology and e-governance sectors which he believes have the potential to transform governance in India. A graduate degree in public administration from Harvard University through the Fulbright-Nehru Master’s Fellowship would give him a fillip in appreciating public policy and positively impact governance through technology.

Aesha Datta

Ms. Aesha Datta graduated in English literature from Hindu College, University of Delhi in 2008 and went on to study journalism at the Asian College of Journalism. She has been a journalist for over 12 years and has worked with publications such as ET Prime, The Hindu Business Line and the India Today Group. Her writing has focused on the intersection of the climate crisis and its impact on society. In her last stint as an Assistant Editor – Environment with ET Prime, she single-handedly steered the environmental and climate coverage for the publication.

In 2017, she was awarded the WWF-India Young Media Climate Fellowship, during which she reported from the Sundarbans and Ladakh on climate-linked migration and community-led climate adaptation.

Her experiences with climate impacts as an environmental journalist, and prior to that as a volunteer for organizations such as Greenpeace India, drives her to keep a people-first approach to her writing and to connect the dots between climate science, policy, economics, and community impact.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Master’s fellow at Columbia University, she is studying the convergence of climate science, equity, policy, law, and business. Upon returning to India, she intends to continue to communicate the ever-intensifying climate crisis and expects that her master’s degree will both improve her understanding of the subject and her ability to articulate the same. She wants to combine her years of practical, on-ground experience with the academic training she receives to work in the public policy and advocacy space.

Zubin Dash

Mr. Zubin Dash is an advocate practicing at the Supreme Court, various High Courts, and Tribunals in India since 2016. He has been involved in constitutional and criminal litigation for the enforcement of fundamental rights and civil liberties. He is the youngest researcher to have been awarded the prestigious Lok Sabha Research Fellowship by the Speaker of Parliament and has authored a book on privacy laws in India. He appeared before a Parliamentary Committee, submitted reports, and assisted Parliamentarians with legislative-drafting and policymaking in the areas of privacy law, data-protection, and surveillance-reforms. Previously, Mr. Dash was consulted by the government for suggesting legislative amendments relating to national security. He also worked as Research Assistant to a former Supreme Court Judge.

Mr. Dash graduated from the National University of Juridical Sciences (NUJS) with a gold medal for successfully representing India at the Jessup International Moot-Court Competition, Washington DC, USA and was adjudged ‘Best Speaker’ at a similar competition. He has completed courses from the Hague Academy of International Law and ISIL and is a member of the American Society of International Law and the Commonwealth Lawyers’ Association. He was on the editorial boards of the NUJS Law Review and the National Police Academy Criminal Law Review and has seven publications to his credit.

During his LLM at Columbia University, Mr. Dash will focus on constitutional law, civil liberties, and criminal justice. In particular, he plans to study how technology impacts the enjoyment of rights, the changing relationship between the state, citizens, and corporate entities, and comparative constitutional theory.

Aananth Daksnamurthy

Mr. Aananth Daksnamurthy is currently pursuing writing, translation, and title acquisitions as a freelancer. As a literature connoisseur, he is closely following the broad contours of Indian vernacular publishing.

His foray into writing happened when he joined the founding team of a Delhi-based news organization, The Print. In his professional journey, he has gathered various experiences in the publishing industry, from a business analyst to a contributing journalist. For a brief period, he was also engaged by the Editors Guild of India. As part of the team that built India’s first academic fellowship for lawyers, he has dabbled in the Indian higher education space for a while. In his latest stint, Mr. Daksnamurthy was a consultant with the Government of Tamil Nadu, leading their media team for the Industries Department. On several occasions, he has also had the privilege of drafting speeches for the Chief Minister and senior bureaucrats.

Born in Tiruchirappalli, Mr. Daksnamurthy graduated with a B. Tech in mechanical engineering from SASTRA University. He also has a postgraduate diploma in liberal arts from Ashoka University as a Young India Fellow. He is a World Economic Forum Global Shaper and a Climate Reality Leader.

A graduate program in publishing as a Fulbright-Nehru Master’s fellow will not only help Mr. Daksnamurthy excel in key publishing business functions but also open doors to a vast network of industry executives, publishers, and editors. His objective is to build a space for vernacular languages in public discourse within India and the world.

Megha Bahl

Ms. Megha Bahl has been practicing criminal law in Delhi for the last seven years. Through research and litigation, she has engaged with the legal issues underlying incidents of custodial violence, sexual offenses, the stifling of journalistic freedoms, and the criminalization of the lives of indigenous people and manual scavengers, among others. She has worked with teams on the prosecution and defense sides of the criminal justice system, acquiring an in-depth understanding of the functioning of institutions like courts, police, and prisons.

Before this, Ms. Bahl obtained her master’s degree in sociology from the prestigious Delhi School of Economics. This academic training and her long engagement with organizations working on issues concerning the democratic rights of people have helped her identify the socio-political reasons for the occurrence of crimes. She has also understood the operation of power that determines access to justice and the availability of rights to victims and accused persons.

After completing her training under the Fulbright-Nehru Master’s Fellowship, Ms. Bahl intends to start a research and litigation clinic in India focusing on interventions that impact the constitutional rights of accused persons and victims in the criminal justice system. A synthesis of academic discourse, courtroom observation, and the lived experiences of people will help generate and disseminate meaningful ideas towards developing more humane jurisprudential practices in India.

Soumya Anakkavur Katchi

Ms. Soumya AK graduated in 2018 from National Law University, Delhi. She worked in a leading all service firm before shifting to a criminal justice reform and litigation center, Project 39A where she has worked for over two years on issues pertaining to mental health and criminal justice in India. As part of her work, she has also worked on death penalty cases with mental health concerns. She has also developed a first-of-its-kind course on forensic mental health in collaboration with Monash University at Australia. Currently, she is working on an empirical study on the insanity defense in India and leads the communications and outreach work at Project 39A.

At Columbia University, she is specializing in the domain of criminal justice and human rights, with a specific focus on examining institutional barriers and development of access to justice mechanisms for the vulnerable and marginalized, from the perspective of the right to a fair and just trial. On returning to India, she intends to continue with her focus on these issues and expects that the master’s degree will inform and enable both her research on these issues as well as advocacy and capacity building with the stakeholders in the criminal justice system.