Mr. Mudit Kumar Singh is a PhD candidate at the Motilal Nehru National Institute of Technology in Allahabad. His current research focuses on public participation in local governance in rural India with special reference to Uttar Pradesh and Panchayti Raj Institutions (PRIs).

Mr. Singh completed his master’s degree in rural development from Govind Ballabh Pant Social Science Institute, Allahabad. He holds bachelor’s degree in economics, English, and mathematics. Prior to beginning his PhD studies, Mr. Singh worked for more than five years in rural-urban areas across four states of India with government and non-government stakeholders in diverse socio-cultural environments. With a proven record of advocacy, he has successfully conducted stakeholders’ workshops on various rights- and entitlement-based issues. He has written several reports and presented papers at national and international conferences.

As part of his Fulbright-Nehru fellowship, Mr. Singh is studying social networks and their role in determining participation in the public decision-making process. Using the network approach to understand public participation in rural India and suburban (small town) U.S. provides a comparative framework to his research on participation and local governance.