Academic Council

Dean - Xavier School of Rural Management, Bhubaneshwar

Kajri has been the Dean of the Xavier School of Rural Management in Bhubaneshwar for the past 3 years. Her areas of interest in research and action are Governance and Decentralization, Institutional Design for Participatory Planning and Management and Gender and Development. Kajri has a PhD in City and Regional Planning from Cornell University, USA.

Programme Director - PRADAN

Nivedita Narain is Programme Director at PRADAN and a Senior Fellow at the Centre for Development Practice at Ambedkar University Delhi. She is currently engaged in collaborative efforts to introduce Development Practice as a new profession in India. The main goal of this initiative is to strengthen the social sector through research, and the education and training of practitioners. She is on the board of non-profits and scholar programmes, and is a founder member of the Institute for Group Facilitators. Nivedita studied at Cornell University, IRMA and IIT Delhi.

Chief Secretary to Govt. of Madhya Pradesh (Retd.)

With a Master’s Degree in Psychology, Mr. S C Behar joined the Indian Administrative Service in 1961. As an IAS Officer, he held a number of important positions in the Government of Madhya Pradesh and Government of India where a major part of the career was devoted in the area of education. He has served in the jury for Indira Gandhi Social Service Award, Birsa Munda Award for services in tribal areas etc. He has published around 100 papers on Education, Public Administration and issues of social concern. He was Chief Editor of an educational journal “Palash” for twenty years and a journal of public administration in Hindi for five years. He is the Founder Director of Eklavya, a voluntary organization for educational research and innovative actions and Founder Chairman of Nachiketu, an institution for education and social service and the founder Vice Chancellor of Guru Ghasidas University, Bilaspur.

Founder Director at India Development Foundation.

Managing Partner - Market and Ecosystem Advisory

Titus Mathew is an advisor to the Incubation Centre for Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Ambedkar University and a Board Member of the Caspian Impact Investment Fund. Previously he was on the boards of the SEEP Network, IRDA, Microfinance Development and Equity Fund (NABARD) and was a Member of the Prime Minister’s Council on Micro Small and Medium Enterprises. Titus’ longest stint was as Founder Executive Director of Sa-Dhan. He has worked closely with the government, Department of Financial Services and the RBI. Titus has an M. Phil. in Economics from the University of Bath and an MA in History from JNU.

Board of Directors - ICICI Bank; Ex-Director - IRMA

Tushaar Shah specialized in managerial economics at IIM Ahmedabad. His doctoral work was on money and banking, subsequently foraying into the economics of dairying, oilseeds, forestry and irrigation. He taught Economics for Rural Managers to several generations of students at IRMA (Institute for Rural Management Anand), bringing the village economy to his classroom in the early 1980’s through a simulation game called Naranpur Express using live data from one of his field research projects. More recently as a Senior Fellow of the International Water Management Institute, Tushaar’s research has focused on water policy, institutions and management in India.

CEO - SRIJAN, Managing Director - SIDS

Ved is a social entrepreneur who has also been on several government policy bodies. He was a consultant and advisor to the World Bank, SDC, SIDA and DfID; was founder-chairman of Ibtada and is currently a board member of several NGOs such as SPWD and Mobile Creches. He also co-authored a book, Human Resource Strategies to Build Pro-Poor Institutions. Ved has an MBA from IIM Ahmedabad and a B.Tech. from IIT Kanpur, after which he studied at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Boston University.