Team KPP

Dr. Dinesh Agarwal
Policy Lead - Health & Disease Control

Dr. Dinesh Agarwal completed his MBBS in 1975 and his MD is community medicine in 1978 from the University of Rajasthan, Jaipur. He has over 37 years of experience in the health sector having worked with UNFPA from 1996 to 2013 on reproductive health and HIV / AIDS. Dr. Agarwal has received training on Primary Health care from Bangkok as a WHO fellow and has successfully completed his training on Social Science Research Methodologies in Reproductive Health from Keele University, UK in 2000. He has also received training on communication for development, A JOICFP training programme on FP communication at Tokyo in 2012. Dr. Agarwal was a faculty member in the Department of Community Medicine at RNT Medical College Udaipur, Rajasthan. He was elevated to the position of Professor of Community Medicine in 1998. Dr. Agarwal has authored several research papers on ICDS, NRHM, reproductive and child health and maternal and neonatal mortality in several peer reviewed journals.

Dr. N. Hamsa
Policy Lead - Women & Girls

Dr. N. Hamsa is trained in Sociology with PH.D from Jawaharlal Nehru University and has worked for over 25 years on gender, labour, human resource, and issues with Council of Indian Employers and Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry. Since 2002 she has been working on gender related issues and has been associated with WPC since its inception and is its Executive Director. She was also the Advisor and Head of the Research Department at the Centre for Social Research, New Delhi for three years after her long tenure at the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry. Dr. Hamsa focuses on issues related to gender, labour in specific child labour, education and corporate social responsibility. Dr. Hamsa has been a member of various Committees and Advisory Boards related to education, labour and social justice. Dr. Hamsa has presented several papers at international conferences and also represented the Government of India at various International forums. She has several publications to her name.

Dr. Geethanjali Natraj
Policy Lead - Trade & Investment

Geethanjali is a Senior Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation and focuses on International trade policy issues. Prior to joining ORF in April 2013, she served as a Director at FICCI after nearly 17 years of being in academic research.

As the Director, FICCI, Geethanjali was overall responsible for two major sectors - Capital Goods and Defence sector involving the three services Army, Navy and Air force. Her work profile involved interacting with major industry players and government on policy advocacy and thought leadership. She also provided policy inputs to the China and Japan desks at FICCI apart from carrying out research in the areas of infrastructure and trade.

She served as a Senior Economist with the National Council of Applied Economic Research for about 6 years. At NCAER she carried out research on important topics in the area of Trade and related issues, Infrastructure, FDI, and completed 17 major sponsored research projects & published more than 30 research papers in reputed journals in and outside India such as Journal of Asian Economics, Economic and Political weekly, Savings and Development etc. She has also worked with Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT), New Delhi, a premier B-School in India for about five years and taught a wide spectrum of courses and also has 18 years of teaching experiences which also include teaching Global Business Environment and WTO in Cairo, Egypt and Dar-e- Salaam, Tanzania.

Dr. Indira khurana
Policy Lead – Resource Scarcity, Food Security & Climate Change

Dr. Indira Khurana has done Post-doctoral fellowship in biotechnology, University of Poona, Pune; PhD in biochemistry, University of Guwahati;. She has more than 20 years of extensive working experience in thematic areas like Water resources management and its linkages with livelihoods and agriculture; Rural development and livelihoods; Biodiversity; Biotechnology; Climate change; Water, sanitation, food and nutrition nexus; Bamboo as a source of sustainable rural livelihood generation, clean energy and climate change mitigation.

She served as a Director Policy and Partnerships in WaterAid India (WAI) for 6 years. Other organisations where she has worked include the Cenre for Science and Environment, Oxfam South Asia, Aga Khan Foundation and Water and Sanitation Management Organisation.

After leaving WaterAid in Jan 2014, she worked as an independent consultant and undertook several assignments such as: (1) Editor and author of a 300-page book on water, titled Reflections on Managing Water: Nature’s greatest asset; (2) Paper on drought in India, its affects and management (WWF); (3) Assessment of school sanitation in Warangal district of Andhra Pradesh and Rural Sanitation in Jharkhand with a special focus on tribal communities; (4) India’s global resource footprint in food, energy and water.

She was also a member of committees like Working Group Rural Drinking Water and Sanitation for formulation of 12th Five Year Plan; the National Advisory Council for Water and Sanitation, Expert Committee for review of guidelines of Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan (rural sanitation programme), Government of India; Expert Committee for SACOSAN III and IV of the Government of India; Jury Member for FICCI-HSBC Water Awards 2012 and 2013.

Dr. Ranjan Kumar Dash
Deputy Policy Lead, Trade and Investment, KPP

Dr. Ranjan Kumar Dash, Deputy Policy Lead, Trade and Investment, KPP. He holds a M. Phil and a PhD in Applied Economics with specialization in Financial Economics from JNU and a Masters in Economics from Central University of Hyderabad. Prior to joining IPE, he has held Fellow positions at ICRIER and Wadhwani Foundation and was Associate Fellow at NCAER. His comes with an extensive experience of researching in the areas of International Trade, Savings, Investment and G20 issues Human Development, Employment, Infrastructure, Foreign Direct Investment, among others. He has published two books and several research papers in International and National journals and has presented his research in various national forums.

Raghavendra Madhu
Deputy Policy Lead - Health & Disease Control

Raghavendra Madhu is a Post Graduate in Public Health from University of Pune and a Graduate in Hospital Administration. Prior to joining IPE, he was a Senior Consultant to the Ministry of Women and Child Development, Government of India. He practices social development policy and governance research and has advocated pivotal policy issues in health system reforms, tobacco and alcohol control and women empowerment through research. He has technically aided research organizations in obtaining alcohol control policy grants from SIDA and IDRC. He has been an implementation professional to State and Central government public health initiatives and also carried out evaluations for NRHM and National Tobacco Control Programme.

His public health research, scientific reviews, commentaries and responses are published in peer reviewed national and international journals like Indian Journal of Cancer, BMJ, Global Policy, Global Health Governance, Global Journal of Medicine and Public Health. He has lately co-authored -a chapter on advocacy and policy in a Smokeless Tobacco Monograph jointly initiated by CDC, WHO-SEARO, PHFI, Healis , MoHFW and the India Country paper on 'Adolescent Rights in India' for the Second High Level Meeting (HLM) on South-South Cooperation for Child Rights in Asia and the Pacific.

Sushant Anand
Research Associate - Food Security, Resource Scarcity, Climate Change

Mr Sushant Anand is an MBA from The Energy & Resources Institute (TERI) University in Infrastructure Management with specialization in Business Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility. He was involved in a Summer Program for future leaders in development hosted by IIM-Udaipur in association with Sanford School of Public Policy, Duke University. His project titled,’ Parental Attitudes towards Education: A study in Genjvi Panchayat of Udaipur District’ got conferred as the best project through the programme’. The study further got recognised at the Comparative Education Society of India recently. He was recently working as a research professional in the development research/consultancy arm of one of world’s leading market research agencies in areas of health, education, poverty and other social issues.

Sushant was previously associated with TERI as a Research Associate in the Sustainable Development Outreach Division and was responsible for incorporating industry engagement activities towards sustainable development as a member of the Delhi Sustainable Development Summit team. Major tasks included background policy research and managing content for the deliberations at the main summit. He had drafted the main concept paper for the High Level Corporate Dialogue at the Delhi Sustainable Development Summit (DSDS) for which they had esteemed personnel from the policy and well as the corporate world. Sushant is also an engineering graduate with concentration in Telecommunication systems from Amity University, India.

Pooja Kotiyal
Research Associate - Resource Scarcity, Food Security & Climate Change

Pooja has over 7years of work experience under Ministry of Environment & Forest, New Delhi. She has worked with Environment Education Division, as a Project Associate in the GLOBE (Global Learning and Observation to Benefit our Environment) project for environmental education program with maximum schools in India. She holds a B.Sc. Zoology, DU; PG in Life Sciences, H.N.B.G U, Birla Campus, Uttrakhand; PG Diploma in Environment and Sustainable Development, IGNOU

Pooja was associated with Climate Change Division, as a project Associate - Technical in "India's Second National Communication to United National Framework Convention on Climate Change" (SNC) project. In SNC project, she has worked in different areas of Climate Change like GHG Inventory Estimation, Impact, vulnerability and adaptation assessment and Research and systematic observation at National Level. During her tenure with MoEF, she was involved for many Govt. publications like India Greenhouse gas Inventory for 2007; India's 4X4 Assessment Report; India's SNC Report to United National Framework Convention on Climate Change, etc. Pooja has worked with the team of 120 experts, Researchers and consultants of the prestigious organizations from all over India. She has joined Knowledge Partnership Programme (KPP) under Resource Scarcity, Food Security, Environment. & Climate Change work stream. Her hobbies include Net Surfing, traveling to explore new places, cooking and reading.

Divashri Mathur
Senior Research Associate - Women and Girls

Divashri Mathur has studied Political Science at Lady Shri Ram College, Delhi University and followed it with a Masters in Economics from the University of Rajasthan. Her interest in socio-economic policy further led her to New York University where she completed a core module in Public Administration with a focus on public policy.

Prior to joining IPE, she has worked as a Senior Research Associate with the Rajiv Gandhi Institute for Contemporary Studies, Rajiv Gandhi Foundation. She has done short term consultancies for various research institutes, national and international NGOs such as IDS, Jaipur, UNICEF, UNFPA and Vishakha group. She has a strong desire to work on issues related to women and children and those excluded to the margins of society.