AUK Dr Amir Ullah Khan
PhD (Jamia Millia University)
/MCRHRDI, Government of Telangana
/Visiting Professor: Indian School of Business & NALSAR, Hyderabad
Comparative Public Administration and Management (CPAM)
Dr Amir Ullah Khan is a distinguished development economist and former Indian civil servant whose career has spanned government, philanthropy, and academia at the highest levels. He served as Senior Advisor at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Director at the India Development Foundation, and Executive Director of Encyclopaedia Britannica, before joining the MCRHRDI of the Government of Telangana. A Visiting Professor at the Indian School of Business, TISS, and NALSAR in Hyderabad, Dr Khan has advised the Ministry of Finance, UNDP, and multiple state governments on development and public policy, and serves on the founding Governing Board of Presidency University, Bengaluru. He is also the editor of SAGE's Journal of Development Policy and Practice, a regular columnist for Mint, and a member of the Government of India's Technical Advisory Committee on Prices and Cost of Living.
AK Prof. Amitabh Kundu
PhD (JNU New Delhi)
/Distinguished Fellow, RIS for Developing Countries
/Professor Emeritus, LJ University
Comparative Public Policy Process and Issues (CPPI)
Prof. Amitabh Kundu is one of India's foremost scholars in urban development, population studies, and public policy, with over four decades of teaching and research experience. He served as Professor and Dean of the School of Social Sciences at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, and has been a Visiting Professor at the University of Amsterdam, Sciences Po Paris, and universities in Germany. An internationally respected voice on poverty and urbanisation, he has been Regional Advisor on Poverty at the UN (UNESCWA, Beirut), a member of India's National Statistical Commission, and has chaired the Post-Sachar Evaluation Committee for the Ministry of Minority Affairs. Prof. Kundu has authored over thirty-five books and three hundred research articles, and currently chairs committees advising the Government of India on Swachh Bharat Mission and labour force surveys.
AD Anjana Divakar
MA Public Policy (Jindal School of Government and Public Policy)
/Executive Director – Public Policy Research & Operations, CDPP, Hyderabad
MPA Professional Project (Co-Supervisor)
Anjana Divakar is a policy researcher and practitioner whose work sits at the dynamic intersection of research, evidence, and public action. As Executive Director of Public Policy Research and Operations at the Centre for Development Policy and Practice (CDPP), Hyderabad, she oversees strategic research initiatives spanning education quality, healthcare, philanthropy, gender, agriculture, and citizen engagement in local governance. She serves as Managing Editor of CDPP's flagship publication, the Journal of Development Policy and Practice, and has been associated with the E&H Foundation, Foundation for Democratic Reforms, and the Marri Chenna Reddy Human Resource Development Institute. Her hands-on experience in designing and managing policy research makes her an invaluable guide for students navigating their MPA Professional Projects.
NBB Nirmaalya B. Biswas
PhD (Cardiff Metropolitan University, UK) · Adjunct Faculty, CMS Business School, Bengaluru · Director – Academic Operations, UWS Bengaluru · Former Director and Dean, MBA ESG India (Galileo Global Education)
/Director – Academic Operations, UWS Bengaluru
/Adjunct Faculty, CMS Business School, Bengaluru
/Former Director and Dean, MBA ESG India (Galileo Global Education)
MPA Professional Project (Co-Supervisor)
Nirmaalya B. Biswas brings an exceptionally diverse professional background of over three decades to his academic role, combining over fourteen years in the global hospitality industry — with organisations including the Oberoi Hotels and Radisson Hotels — with deep expertise in higher education administration and academic leadership. He was member of the Faculty body at Leeds Beckett University and Huddersfield University in the UK. He has led the India operations of MBA programmes affiliated with Cardiff Metropolitan University, Anglia Ruskin University and UWS Glasgow, in the UK and Edith Cowan University, Perth, Australia and served as Director and Dean of MBA ESG India [a part of Galileo Global Education], where he championed an apprenticeship-based pedagogical model integrating academic rigour with industry interface. As an Adjunct Faculty member at CMS Business School, Bengaluru, and a research scholar working in the domain of entrepreneurship, he brings both strategic thinking and practical experience to programme design and student mentoring. His experience spanning the UK, Australia, South East Asia, and India equips him uniquely to guide MPA students through the applied demands of their Professional Projects.
DR Dr Debasis Rooj
PhD Economics (Northern Illinois University, USA)
/Associate Professor of Economics, FLAME University, Pune
Comparative Critical Infrastructure Policymaking (CCIP)
Dr Debasis Rooj is an Associate Professor of Economics at FLAME University, Pune, where he has over fifteen years of teaching and research experience in the US and India. Holding a PhD from Northern Illinois University, his research interests span macroeconomics, household finance, development economics, and the micro-macro linkages in the Indian economy, with particular focus on critical infrastructure, digital payments, health financing, and housing finance. He has published widely in leading international journals including World Development, Economics Letters, and Spatial Economic Analysis, and has provided research consultancy to the Government of Jharkhand and the Post-Sachar Evaluation Committee. Dr Rooj's expertise in financial and macroeconomic dimensions of infrastructure policy brings an analytically rigorous, data-driven perspective to the CCIP module.
NB Dr Nilanjan Banik
PhD Economics (Utah State University, USA) | MA (Delhi School of Economics)
/Professor of Economics & Finance, School of Management, Mahindra University, Hyderabad
International Migration & Diaspora Governance Principles & Challenges of International Political Economy
Dr Nilanjan Banik is a Professor of Economics and Finance at the School of Management, Mahindra University, and a leading voice on international trade, migration, market structure, and development economics. He holds consulting engagements with the Asian Development Bank, UNESCAP, WTO, ICRIER, and the Geneva Network (UK), and has held visiting positions at the Korea Institute for International Economic Policy and Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, South Korea. His research and commentary have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Business Times, and Huffington Post, and his published work spans time series econometrics applied to trade, India's spatial development nexus, and international migration patterns. Dr Banik's dual expertise in migration governance and international political economy makes him an ideal guide through both the complexities of global diaspora dynamics and the architecture of the contemporary international economic order.
MR Prof. Mubeen Rafat
MMS, Finance (JBIMS, Mumbai University)
/Faculty, Mahindra University
/Former Director – Centre for Economics & Finance, Administrative Staff College of India (ASCI), Hyderabad
Management & Leadership in Public Organisations
Prof. Mubeen Rafat is a highly experienced academic and corporate trainer with over three decades of expertise spanning finance, governance, corporate leadership, and public-private partnerships. A former Director at the Centre for Economics and Finance at ASCI (Administrative Staff College of India) and former Independent Director on the Board of VST Industries Ltd, she has trained corporate executives, IAS officers, women entrepreneurs, and senior banking professionals on topics including corporate governance, strategic risk management, and public sector financial leadership. A Visiting Faculty at the Indian School of Business, NMIMS Hyderabad, and SP Jain Dubai Campus, Prof. Rafat began her career in treasury at National Organic Chemical Industries before heading the finance function at Intergraph Consulting (a wholly owned subsidiary of Intergraph Corporation, USA). Her rare combination of boardroom experience, regulatory knowledge, and teaching excellence gives students a uniquely practical and nuanced understanding of leadership and management challenges within public sector organisations.
RS Dr Reshmi Sengupta
PhD Economics (Northern Illinois University, USA) | MSc (University of Calcutta)
/Associate Professor of Economics & Co-Chair, Centre for Economics and Public Policy, FLAME University, Pune
Public Administration in Non-Western Countries Governing the Environment
Dr Reshmi Sengupta is an accomplished development and health economist whose research specialises in analysing large-scale survey datasets using advanced econometric methods to generate robust evidence for public policy. She holds a PhD from Northern Illinois University and a Post-Graduate Diploma in Health Services Management from the Indian Institute of Public Health, Bhubaneswar, and serves as Co-Chair of the Centre for Economics and Public Policy at FLAME University. Dr Sengupta has provided research consultancy to the Post-Sachar Evaluation Committee (Kundu Committee), Centre for Telangana Studies, MCRHRDI, CDPP Hyderabad, and the Government of Jharkhand, and has published extensively in national and international peer-reviewed journals. Her expertise in the political economy of non-Western governance systems and her empirical grounding in environmental policy and health financing bring exceptional analytical depth to the modules she leads at UWS Bengaluru.
