Speakers

• Babu Jacob, IAS (R) Former Chief Secretary, Kerala
  

  Babu Jacob, IAS (R)

  Former Chief Secretary, Kerala

  Babu Jacob belonged to the Indian Administrative Service, 1968 batch of the Kerala cadre. He was District Collector and Secretary to the Government of Kerala in several departments, and also served in central government ministries. He retired as Chief Secretary to the Government of Kerala in 2005.

  After retirement, he engaged in research on governance, public management, and policy studies, initially under attachment to the Centre for Development Studies, Trivandrum, through an Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR) fellowship, and later independently. The research project culminated in a report on the state of urban government decentralization in India. This evolved into a book co-authored with Suraj Jacob, titled Governing Locally: Institutions, Policies, and Implementation in India, published by Cambridge University Press in 2021.

  His later research expanded to governance across sectors, focusing on why governments are often unable to fully achieve what they propose through policymaking. He is currently working on a co-authored book on the policy process in India, based on case studies tracing government policies from intent to outcome (forthcoming from Cambridge University Press).

• Dr. Jeevan Kumar
  

  Dr. Jeevan Kumar
• Dr. Tathagata Chatterji Professor, Xavier University, Bhubaneswar
  

  Dr. Tathagata Chatterji

  Professor, Xavier University, Bhubaneswar

  Dr. Tathagata Chatterji is a Professor of Urban Management and Governance at XIM University, Bhubaneswar, where he concurrently teaches at both the School of Human Settlements and the School of Governance and Public Affairs. Broadly within the area of urban governance, his research interests include urban policies and institutions; digital technology applications in urban management; climate governance and social inclusion; and urban economy and informal livelihoods. A recipient of the Gerd Albers Award (2016) from ISOCARP (International Society of City and Regional Planners), Dr. Chatterji has written extensively on urban policy and governance in an international context. Presently, he is co-editing a book, City Economies in the Global South: Growth, Inclusion, and Sustainability, to be published by Routledge. He holds a PhD in Urban Planning and Governance from the University of Queensland, Australia.

• Sandeep Anirudhan
  

  Sandeep Anirudhan

  Sandeep Anirudhan is a full time volunteer, building communities to promote ‘conscious living’ as a tool to catalyze awareness and drive action, in areas such as Sustainability, City Governance, Climate Change, Citizen Engagement, Grass-root democracy, Education/Learning, Water Security, Sustainable Mobility, Lake Activism, Urban Community Farming, Natural Farming, Conservation, Green Activism, Restoration of our planetary ecosystems, etc., Please find his communities listed here: bit.ly/ConsciousCommunities

  What inspired him? Sandeep Anirudhan was a Serial Entrepreneur and Management professional, whose witnessing of death up close opened up the self awareness that ‘death’ is ‘real’, that our ‘time’ in this ‘life’ is limited, and one must use the time we have on meaningful things; this realisation made him revisit all his life choices, prompted him to audit what he was doing with the time he has on hand. Realising that it is being wasted in a conventional lifestyle, he turned his back on it, and decided to use his time on ‘earth – our only home’, for its betterment.

  Ever since, he has been living a life of questioning everything, and contribution to the planet and society. His personal and public lives are an example of ‘minimalism’, non-transactionalism and community engagement. He has not earned a penny since 2013, does not have any savings, survives on the hospitality of his family, spends all his time on advocacy and activism on myriad causes, supported by occasional public crowd-funding. He has put his trust in the universe. And that trust has paid off, enabling him to create so many different platforms for change. From experience, he says: ‘when one contributes selflessly to society, society has your back!

• T.R Raghunandan
  

  T.R Raghunandan

  Consultant, trainer and author on decentralization, anti-corruption and heritage conservation. He was born in Ernakulam, and did his schooling there, and went to Delhi for college education.

  He served in the Indian Administrative Service (IAS), holding positions of Secretary, Rural Development and Panchayat Raj Department. Karnataka (2000-2004) and Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Panchayati Raj in the Government of India (2004-2009), noted for pioneering initiatives in strengthening grassroot democracy.

  Has worked in several Indian States and the Indian Union Government on decentralised public governance. He was a member of several Expert Committees constituted by the Government of India and some States on decentralised public governance. He also headed consultancy teams for the 14th and 15th Central Finance Commissions of India and submitted reports on local government finances to these Commissions.

  He also serves as a member of several committees on capacity development and regular speaker at the NIRDPR Hyderabad, LBSNAA Mussoorie, KILA, Trissur Kerala and ANSSIRD, Mysore, Karnataka. Wide international experience in design and delivery of face to face and online courses on democratic decentralisation and fiscal decentralisation for the UNDP, the World Bank and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, with consultancy experience in several Asian Countries.

  After leaving the government, headed and ran the ipaidabribe.com initiative (2010-2011), which crowd-sources reports on corruption from citizens. Currently he is a Senior Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi, and a visiting faculty at the Institute of Federalism and awarded the Doctorate Honoris Causa by the University of Fribourg.