Events

Shruti Rajagopalan is an Assistant Professor of Economics at State University of New York, Purchase College and a Fellow at the Classical Liberal Institute at the New York University School of Law.

She earned her Ph.D. in economics in 2013 from George Mason University. She has a BA (Hons) Economics and LL.B. from University of Delhi; and an LL.M. from the European Masters in Law and Economics Program at University of Hamburg, Ghent University, and University of Bologna.

Shruti's broad area of interest is the economic analysis of comparative legal and political systems. Her research interests specifically include law and economics, public choice theory, and constitutional economics. Her research has been published in peer-reviewed journals, law reviews, and books. She also enjoys writing in the popular press and has a fortnightly column called The Impartial Spectator in the Indian financial paper Mint and has also published opinion editorials on Indian political economy in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Wire, The Hindu: Business Line, and The Indian Express.

Dr. Geeta Gouri, former Member of the Competition Commission of India (CCI), is an economist with 15 years of experience working as a Regulatory Economist. She served as Member (Economics) at the CCI for 5 years and prior to that as Director (Tariffs) at the Andhra Pradesh Electricity Regulatory Commission. This unique experience gives her the privilege of being perhaps the only economist in India to be associated with the premiering of the two commissions, which ushered competition and markets reforms in the economy. Dr. Gouri has published extensively and delivered lectures on a wide range of subjects; "Pricing for Welfare; Petroleum Products in India"; "Privatization and Public Enterprise: The Asia-Pacific Experience" (edited); "Towards Equity: New Economic Policy and Equity" (edited).

Rahul Singh is currently (senior) Associate Professor of Law & Director of the Institute of Competition Law and Economics at the National Law School of India University, Bangalore (NLSIU). Professor Singh teaches competition law-and-economics, regulation, WTO and jurisprudence. As a visiting professor, he has lectured at Harvard Law School (USA), University of California at Berkeley (USA), University of Florida Levin College of Law (USA), University of Oxford (UK), Deakin University (Australia) and the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (India).

Professor Singh has been nominated by the Chief Justice of the Singapore Supreme Court to serve as a member of the governing board of the Asian Business Law Institute, Singapore Academy of Law. He is a member of the Competition Commission of India's Advisory Committee on Regulation. Professor Singh's law review articles on competition law are available on Westlaw and have been cited by the Chief Justice of the Australian apex court. He is also a consultant for several law firms, state owned entities and corporate houses.

Sajid Sheikh is an Assistant Professor (Law) and Assistant Registrar (Academic) at the Mumbai National Law University. He obtained his LL.M. (Hons.) specializing in Intellectual Property Rights from National Law University, Jodhpur and is pursuing his Ph.D. from NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad. He has numerous contributions to various domestic and international law journals on various aspects of Intellectual Property Rights. He has also conducted workshops on Intellectual Property Rights at various institutions including but not limited to the Department of Science & Technology, Jammu & Kashmir Government, and NLSIU Bangalore.

Nikhil Pahwa is the Founder and Editor of MediaNama, a leading publication chronicling the growth of India's digital ecosystem. He is a TED Fellow, and co-founded the Savetheinternet.in campaign for Net Neutrality in India, which was the largest grassroots campaign in the history of India, with over a million people participating. He was also the co-founder and Chairman of the Internet Freedom Foundation, which focuses on advocacy for an open Internet in India. Nikhil has been a part of initiatives which helped declare unconstitutional, Section 66A of India's IT Act, which had led to people being jailed for what comments on Facebook; and the watering down of Section 79A, which had led to censorship of speech online.

At present, Nikhil is a part of initiatives to fix Aadhaar, the world's largest biometric identity database, covering over 1.19 billion Indians, in a manner that protects privacy and agency for Indians. He is also working on initiatives that help simplify complex tech policy discussions for citizens, and believes that active citizen participation is necessary for driving meaningful and inclusive change.

Professor Choudhury had completed her graduation in B.A. LLB. (Hons.) from West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences, Kolkata in 2009. Between 2009 and 2013, she had worked at two leading law firms at their Mumbai office, where she was involved in the regulatory practice team as well as project finance transactions during the brief stint at the firms.

In 2013, she shifted gears with an inclination to join academics. She had completed her LLM with specialization in Corporate and Commercial Laws from National Law University Odisha, Cuttack in 2014, and was the gold medalist of her batch. After clearing UGC- NET in 2014, Professor Choudhury joined as Assistant Professor at Symbiosis Law School, Pune from March, 2015. At Symbiosis, Professor Choudhury teaches various subjects including Jurisprudence, Contract Law, International Trade Law, Corporate Law, Investment Law to both undergraduate and postgraduate students. In addition, her areas of research include international trade, consumer protection, competition law, securities law and health law. Professor Choudhury was also instrumental in drafting the application for empanelment of SLS, Pune under the CCI Advocacy programme for which she had analyzed the effect of certain provisions of the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016 on competition in the relevant market.

Mr. Apar Gupta, is a lawyer and the executive director of the Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF). He completed his post-graduate studies from the Columbia University School of Law and has practised for more than a decade. From 2015, he has been working extensively on public interest issues which include strategic litigation and organisation of campaigns and collectives. In courts, his work as a lawyer includes key digital rights cases on privacy and censorship. Beyond court work he has worked extensively with activists and government institutions in public campaigns to advance net neutrality, reform defamation laws, fight against internet shutdowns and introduce a strong privacy statute.

Mr. Murali Neelakantan is a dual qualified (English solicitor and Indian advocate) with over 2 decades of experience in advising on international transactions in a wide variety of sectors. He was previously a senior equity partner at Ashurst in London and subsequently a senior partner at Khaitan & Co. He joined Cipla in 2013 as its first Global General Counsel and subsequently was Executive Director and Global General Counsel at Glenmark. He is currently Principal at Amicus where he provides legal and policy advice, and an independent director on the board of TTK Prestige, India's largest kitchen appliances company. He has recently written series of articles on the national health Stack, DNA Bill and healthcare policy for BloombergQuint.

Swaminathan S. Anklesaria Aiyar is an Indian journalist and columnist. He is a consulting editor for the Economic Times and was formerly Editor of two of India's biggest economic dailies, Financial Express from 1988-90 and The Economic Times from 1992-94. He is also a Research Fellow at the Cato Institute and the elder brother of Mani Shankar Aiyar, who is a senior Congress leader.

Barun is the founder and director of the Liberty Institute, www.InDefenceofLiberty.org, a nonprofit, independent public policy research and advocacy organization, based in New Delhi, India. Liberty Institute is dedicated to enhancing individual freedom in economic and political domains. Among the recognition the Institute has received was the Templeton Award for social entrepreneurship in 2003. Barun Mitra also received the 2005 Julian L. Simon Award for his contribution in environmental policy debates from the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

Amit Kaushik was a civil servant for 20 years, joining the Indian Railway Accounts Service in 1987. During his time in the service, he held a variety of challenging assignments, including as Director in the Ministry of HRD, Government of India, where he was associated with the implementation of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), as well as the drafting of the Right to Education Act. He has consulted widely, with multilateral agencies like UNESCO and UNICEF, and has extensive experience of educational planning in India and other developing countries.

Since leaving government, he has worked with organisations like SRF, the NGO Pratham, Educomp Schools and IPE Global. He is currently the CEO at the Australian Council for Educational Research (India).

"PoD has been an enriching experience. It has encouraged me to look at things from a liberal and rational point of view. Instead of looking at the state as a provider of everything, the course has encouraged me to look at every human as a self-interest maximising individual and how incentives in the free market can help achieve the optimal outcome."

It has helped me rethink incentives and using them to achieve the required outcomes. It has also helped me rethink the role of a State and the need for libertarian values in the same.

I was more of a person who spoke about the problem but could never give a solution. This course helped me challenge that and work towards finding solutions. It also helped me think critically about those problems

Parth's research and advocacy work focus on the themes of economic freedom (law, liberty and livelihood campaign), choice and competition in education (fund students, not schools), property rights approach for the environment (terracotta vision of stewardship), and good governance (new public management and the duty to publish). He has published extensively in international and Indian journals, on various topics from currency regulation to education policy. He holds a PhD in Economics from Auburn University, and taught at the University of Michigan.

Baladevan Rangaraju is the Founder Director of India Institute. He is a social entrepreneur with extensive experience in research, advocacy, community engagement, campaigns, organization building and education leadership. He is the author of The Private School Revolution in Bihar: Findings from a survey in Patna Urban (with James Tooley and Pauline Dixon), India's first landscape study of the school market in a city. His pioneering use of GPS technology to measure private school popularity provided new information on school distribution and enrollment patterns – data that helped the state review its regulatory policies. The study won the global Templeton Freedom Award in 2012.

Renuka Sane is an Associate Professor at the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy (NIPFP). Her research interests are in household finance, especially on household choice in financial instruments such as credit, pensions, insurance and equity markets, as well as consumer protection in finance. She is also interested in research and policy on the criminal justice system in India.

Bhuvana Anand is a governance and public policy specialist. She has worked with various donors and civil society organisations in Sudan, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, India and the United States, in policy advocacy, managing multi-pronged programs and research. She previously worked with the United Nations, the British Government's Department for International Development, and MIT's Poverty Action Lab.

Anupam Manur is an Assistant Professor at the Takshashila Institution. He was previously working as a Research Associate at the Indian Institute of Management – Bangalore, after completing his Masters in International Business (Economics) from Lancaster University.

His research interests lie at the intersection of economics, technology, and public policy. He is currently working on platform economics, India's ongoing jobs crisis, digital payments, and the New World Order. He has published several editorials in the Mint, Financial Express, The Hindu, NDTV, Scroll, Deccan Herald, Bloomberg Quint, AsiaGlobal Online and others. He has also edited three books under the Takshashila Institution Press.

Anupam teaches economic reasoning and macroeconomics in all of Takshashila's public policy programmes and is responsible for designing the curriculum for the educational programmes.

Swaminathan S. Anklesaria Aiyar is an Indian journalist and columnist. He is consulting editor for the Economic Times and writes regularly for the Economic Times and The Times of India. He is also a Research Fellow at the Cato Institute