School of Social Sciences

Prof Narendar Pani is an economist by training who takes a multidisciplinary approach to the Indian political economy issues. In this effort, he has relied on a method derived from the writings of MK Gandhi. Over the last three and a half decades, he has held positions in academia and the media. His books include, ‘Inclusive economics: Gandhian method and contemporary policy’ (Sage, 2002); ‘Redefining Conservatism: An essay on the bias of India’s economic reform’ (Sage, 1994); and ‘Reforms to pre-empt change: Land legislation in Karnataka’ (Concept, 1983). He is also one of the editors of ‘Bengaluru, Bangalore, Bengaluru: Imaginations and their times’ (Sage, 2010).  

He was a member of the Task Force on Manufacturing set up by the Government of Karnataka, 2013. 

He was a member of the Working Group set up by the Planning Commission, New Delhi, to review the performance of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act. 

He was a member of the Steering Committee for the Evaluation Study on Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) conducted by the Programme Evaluation Organization of the Planning Commission, New Delhi. 

He was a member of the Board of Governors of the Institute for Social and Economic Change, Bangalore, from 2003 to 2009. 

He was a member of the editorial advisory board of the Journal for Social and Economic Development, an academic journal brought out by the Institute for Social and Economic Change Bangalore, India, from its inception till 2009. 

He won the Citibank Pan Asia Journalism Award for 1992.  The award was given for writing on trade issues.  The piece that won the award was on the environment as a trade barrier.

Carol Upadhya, a social anthropologist, studies a range of social transformations in contemporary India, including processes of spatial and social mobility,the globalisation of cities and provincial towns and the urbanisation of rural landscapes; speculative land and real estate markets and their implications for local communities; and skilling, labour migration, and employment. She recently completed an ethnographic monograph on the Indian software industry, Reengineering India: Work, Capital, and Class in an Offshore Economy (Oxford University Press, 2016).Prof. Upadhya earlier co-directed the Provincial Globalisation research programme.She has received research grants from the National Science Foundation (USA), Azim Premji Foundation, Indian Council for Social Science Research (ICSSR), WOTRO Science for Global Development of the NWO, Netherlands, and the Indo-Dutch Programme on Alternatives in Development (Netherlands). She has been a visiting scholar at Central European University, Budapest, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, Goettingen, Germany, and the International Institute of Asian Studies, Amsterdam. Upadhya is anEditorial Advisorfor the journal Contributions to Indian Sociology.Prior to joining NIAS, Prof. Upadhya taught in the PG Department of Sociology at SNDT Women’s University in Mumbai. 

Carol Upadhya's recent research has focused on international migration, transnationalism, and regional diasporas; labour and capital in the software industry; urbanisation and the globalisation of cities; and land rights.

SS Meenakshisundaram is a Post Graduate in Mathematics from Loyola College, Madras and holds a Ph.D. in Development Economics from Jamia Milia Islamia National University, New Delhi. He joined the Karnataka cadre of the Indian Administrative Service in 1968. During his career he had held a number of assignments including Secretary, Rural Development and Panchayati Raj department when Karnataka launched its new system of panchayatiraj institutions. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex, United Kingdom for one year. Besides several articles and papers on Panchayatiraj and Rural Development, he has also published a book on "Decentralization in Developing Countries" with special reference to Nigeria , China and India during 1994. After working as Principal Secretary to the Chief Minister of Karnataka and Joint Secretary to three Prime Ministers of India, he also served as Adviser in the Planning Commission and Secretary in the Ministry of Rural Development. He was also the Dy. Chairman of the State Planning Board when Karnataka was under the President's Rule. Currently, he is the Chairman of MYRADA, a voluntary organization in the field of building people's institutions for development and a Visiting Professor at Institute of Social and Economic Change, Bangalore. His research interests include rural development, poverty alleviation, voluntary action and decentralized governance