Team CDPD

Dr Sanjukta Dasgupta is Professor (retd) and Former Head, Dept of English and Former Dean, Faculty of Arts, Calcutta University has been the recipient of the Fulbright postdoctoral fellowship and Fulbright Scholar in Residence grant, Australia India Council fellowship, Gender Studies fellowship grant, University of British Columbia, among others, she has been invited to participate in conferences and teach/lecture at universities in the USA, UK, Europe, Canada and Australia.

She was the Chairperson of the Commonwealth Writers Prize jury panel at Melbourne and Malta.

The Indian Institute of Advanced Study Shimla invited her as Visiting Professor to deliver a series of talks on Tagore, Nation and Gender. She was granted the Charles Wallace Trust UK Translator Fellowship to work on her project on Tagore's Daughters at the University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK. She was the Co- Principal Investigator of the India-US Knowledge Initiative program, working on women entrepreneurs engaged in eco-friendly business and in this connection visited Chicago, Florida and South Carolina in the USA in 2016 and 2017.

She is the President, Executive Council, of the Indian Poetry and Performance Library, ICCR, Kolkata. In 2018, Sahitya Akademi New Delhi nominated her as the Convenor of the English Language Board and member of the General Council.

In 2018, she taught in Poland, as Visiting Professor, at the Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland. She received the IWSFF Women Achievers Award, Kolkata in 2019 and the WEI Kamala Das Poetry Award in 2020. She is a member of the Advisory Committee of the Centre for Women's Studies, North Bengal University.

Dasgupta is a poet, short story writer, critic and translator and had 21 published books. To name a few; The Novels of Huxley and Hemingway: A Study in Two Planes of Reality, Responses : Selected Essays, Snapshots( poetry), The Indian Family in Transition(co-edited SAGE). Media, Gender andPopular Culture in India: Tracking Change and Continuity ( co- author, SAGE, 2012) ,Tagore: At Home in the World ( coeditor SAGE 2013), GolpoSankalan:Translated Contemporary Bengali Short Stories (Sahitya Akademi New Delhi 2016, second edition 2018), Claiming Space for Australian Women's Writing (co-edited.) Publisher: Pan Macmillan, USA), 2017, Sita's Sisters 2 (Poetry) 2019.In Memoriam : English Translations of Tagore's Poems in Swaran and Palataka( Sahitya Akademi), 2020, SHE: Short Stories by Indian Women Writers (edited. Sahitya Akademi 2021)

Ishita Mukhopadhyay is Professor, Department of Economics, University of Calcutta and President, Indian Association for Women's Studies. She has published and supervised research on Gender and Labour, Development Studies, Policy Analysis for the last twenty five years. She has supervised nearly twenty students in doctoral dissertation. She has worked in Action Research Projects and Policy Papers for the last 30 years.

She worked in Projects in collaboration with National Women's Commission and West Bengal State Women's Commission. She also worked on Environmental Challenges and carried on a Project of Solar Water Purification of drinking water in West Bengal urban and rural areas. She has a wide network of Civil Society Organisations with whom she is engaged as advisors, collaborators and partners.

Some of her cited publications include "The Changing Identity of Rural India : A Sociohistoric Analysis" edtd with E.Basile (Anthem Press) in 2009, " Calcutta's Informal Sector: Changing Pattern of Labour use" from Economic Political Weekly ,1998, " Emerging Challenges of Rural Labour Market : Insights from Indian villages " along with N.Roy in Arthaniti in 2019,"Gender Wage Gap: Some recent evidence from India" along with S.

Poddar in Journal of Quantitative Economics in 2019. She has been a contributor in several policy researches like CEDAW Alternate Report by NAWO in 2014.

Debalina Ray Chaudhuri is active in the development sector for more than 25 years. She holds a Master degree in Economics from Calcutta University and Post Graduate Degree in Business Administration (Systems) from IISWBM.

The spectra of her experience covers mainstreaming to drop out children, basic health service, women empowerment, institution building, livelihood promotion, watershed development, minor irrigation, major irrigation and resettlement & rehabilitation. She has vast experience in capacity building, action research, monitoring and evaluation with Centre and State Govt, International and National agencies.

She was intensively involved in developing regional plan strategy for up-gradation of secondary and tertiary health care facility in North East region by 2030.

She monitored Agri-Business & Rural Transformation programme in Assam and Flood & Riverbank Erosion Risk Management programme in Assam, Rajasthan Agricultural Competitiveness Project (RACP).She did Impact assessment of World Food Programme in the tribal population of Jharkhand. She regularly works to support implementation of social safeguard policy in bilateral (European Union, and USAID), and multilateral programmes (Asian Development Bank, the United Nations Development Program and the World Bank).

Dipankar Sinha is Professor of Political Science and Director, Centre for Social Sciences and Humanities, University of Calcutta. He is engaged in postgraduate teaching and research for more than three decades after getting his Ph.D degree from Jadavpur University.

He also acts in advisory and consultative capacity in academic, governmental, nongovernmental, corporate and civil society organizations, and serves in the editorial boards of social science journals. Having foundational interest in the interface of development and communication Sinha's area of research and publications mainly focus on the informational and/or communicative dialectics of governance and development in the post-globalization era from the vantage point of critical political economy.

Apart from publishing widely in reputed international and national journals and edited volumes Sinha has authored Development Communication: Contexts for the Twenty-First Century, Media Sanskriti (in Bangla), Communicating Development in the New World Order: A Critical Analysis, Development Narratives: Walking the Field in Rural West Bengal, and Development, Governance and the Public: Short Essays for Long Thoughts.

His co-authored volumes include Media, Gender and Popular Culture in India: Tracking Change and Continuity, and Self-help Groups in West Bengal: Challenges of Development and Empowerment.

Kumarjit Mandal is an academic. Currently he is an Associate Professor at the University of Calcutta. While he keeps a wide ranging interest in his studies his primary focus remains economics.

Born in 1970, he went to school in Kolkata. He graduated from St. Xavier's College, Kolkata and obtained his masters in economics from University of Calcutta. Later on he earned his Ph.D. from State University of New York at Albany.

The professional life of Mr. Mandal started with Reserve Bank of India in 1994. He was an economist in the research department of the Bank. During his days in the Bank he got an opportunity to study and observe the different aspects of economic policy-making and practical modalities of banking and monetary policies. During his days in Reserve Bank of India, Mr. Mandal got opportunities for participation in training courses at IMF Center at Singapore and Bank of England.

Mr. Mandal joined the faculty of University of Calcutta in 2008. He participates in the teaching of masters' and PhD programmes of the economics department of the University. Apart from this departmental involvement he has been invited by premier institutes like Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, Indian Statistical Institute, Indian Institute of Technology to teach different courses. His main area of teaching is macroeconomics, monetary economics and applied econometrics. However, his research interest spreads over a wide variety of subjects.

He has published in reputed journals in the discipline. He has been guiding a number of students in their research work. He is also associated with the research activities of a number of academic institutions. He acts as an associate editor of the journal Arthaniti and referee for other reputed journals.

Bankim Chandra Mandal, formerly Head, and currently Professor, Department of Political Science and Director, Dr B.R.Ambedkar Studies Centre, Rabindra Bharati University. He is also the Director of Rabindra Bharati University Computer Centre of the same University.

He obtained his M. A. and M. Phil. Degree in Political Science from Calcutta University and did his Ph. D. from Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata.

He has written a number of books, monographs and articles. He is the author of Protective Discrimination Policy: In Search of Equality, Rabindra SahityeBratyabhabna: Samya O NyayerSandhane. Ambedkar's Quest for just Society: An Unfinished Work (Monograph), Electoral Reforms in India: Problems and Suggestions (Monograph).

He regularly contributes articles on Indian Politics, Dalit Politics, Gender Politics and Human Rights of the Marginal People to Professional Journals. He presented a number of papers and invited lectures in the national and international seminars.

He has jointly completed two major projects on Socio-economic Conditions of Dalit Women and Muslim Women in West Bengal. Besides, the academic assignments, he occupies a few important positions in both administrative and academic fields within and outside the University.

He is the elected executive member of West Bengal College and University Teachers Association.

Swati Ghosh is Professor of Economics at the Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata. She is also the Director of the Women’s Studies Centre of the University. She is the author of the book titled: The Gendered Proletariat: Sex Work, Worker’s Movement and Agency (OUP, 2017). She has publications injournals like the Social Text, Hecate, Identity Culture and Politics, Economic and Political Weekly, Sarai Reader, etc. Her publications include several book-chapters and monographs, focusing on migration of labour, health of the adolescents, identity, sexuality and worker-status of women in colonial and postcolonial settings. She is twice recipient of the South Asian Fellowship of Social Science Research Council in 2004 and 2005.

She was a consulting member of the Regional Action Forum III, of SARI-Q-UNDP working on Safe Migration Policy. She has a long experience of field-survey based research - which is close to her heart. Feminist Theory and Gender Studies have engaged her to write book-chapters on Simone de Beauvoir, Alexandra Kollantai, motherhood, women labour, agency of sex-workers, etc. She has reviewed for journals like Signs:A Journal of Women in Culture and Society, Economic and Political Weekly and others. Her research area is informal labour, migration, political economy of development, feminist economics and gender related issues. She has taught courses at the University of Calcutta Department of Economics, and School of Women’s Studies Jadavpur University, as guest faculty.

She has translated the book Science and Indian Culture, acollection of essays by J.B.S. Haldane in Bengali. She has a number of articles in Bengali little magazines and journals like Baromash, Pratikshan, Nandan, EbongMushaera, Parikatha, Ababhash and Setubandhan. She had been a member of the editorial collective of an English journal from Kolkata, titled from the margins: gender, colony and postcolonial studies.

After completing Master Degree in Economics from Calcutta University, he served as an Administrative Officer of the Govt. of West Bengal. Later he joined University of Calcutta in the year 1996 and worked in different administrative positions. Served as members of different committees constituted by Dept. of Higher Education, Govt. of West Bengal and West Bengal Council for Higher Education. Also served as members of expert panels for evaluation and assessment of UGC funded projects. Worked as members of special audit teams constituted by UGC.

Have experience in working with labour issues like minimum wage, contract labour, equal remuneration, etc. in semi-urban and rural areas. Have experience in managing examination systems and monitoring of development of colleges.

Have interest in political economy and cultural studies.

Have published articles in daily news papers, digital magazines and in academic journals.

Kanchan Dutta is a first class economics graduate from Presidency College, Calcutta and a practicing Chartered Accountant. He has specialized knowledge in Accounting, Audit, Taxation, Valuation and Insolvency matters. He has wide experience in issues of Accounting, Finance and Taxation in the social sector.

He is one of the Partner of KGRS & Company, Chartered Firm situated at Chatterjee International Centre, Kolkata

Tinku Khanna has played a key role in passage of landmark judgement against trafficking in Patna High Court as a member of Apne Aap Women Worldwide, an organization she was associated with for last 18 years.

After completing her higher studies in Sociology and Women's Studies, she has over the last two decades worked to prevent sex-trafficking of women and girls from de-notified tribes in Bihar, Delhi and Kolkata.

She has extensive experience of policy advocacy, especially policies related to trafficking and education of disadvantaged children. In her professional career as a social worker, she has been part of several action researches on caste, women, sexual exploitation of women and girls, land and housing rights of women.

She has published numerous articles based on her experience of working among the Nats in Bihar. She has keen interest in feminist politics, especially feminist interpretation of laws.