Dr. Arvind Panagariya

Chancellor of Nalanda University and Chairperson, Governing Board

Dr Arvind Panagariya former Vice-Chairman, Niti Aayog, has been Professor of Indian Political Economy at Columbia University. He has also served as Chief Economist of the Asian Development Bank and Professor of Economics at the University of Maryland at College Park. He has also worked with the World Bank, IMF and UNCTAD in various capacities. He holds a Ph.D. degree in Economics from Princeton University. Dr Panagariya has authored more than fifteen books. His book India: The Emerging Giant (2008, OUP, New York) was listed as a top pick of 2008 by the Economist magazine and described as the “definitive book on the Indian economy” by Fareed Zakaria of the CNN. The Economist magazine has described his book, Why Growth Matters, (with Jagdish Bhagwati) as “a manifesto for policymakers and analysts.” Professor Panagariya’s scientific papers have appeared in the top economics journals such as the American Economic Review and the Quarterly Journal of Economics while his policy papers have appeared in the Foreign Affairs and Foreign Policy. Until recently, he wrote a monthly column in the Times of India and his guest columns have appeared in the Financial Times, Wall Street JournalIndia Today. In March 2012, the Government of India honoured Panagariya with Padma Bhusan, the third highest civilian honors the country bestows in any field.

Professor Sachin Chaturvedi

Vice Chancellor, Nalanda University

Professor Sachin Chaturvedi is currently Vice Chancellor of Nalanda University with additional charge of the post of Director General at the Research and Information System for Developing Countries (RIS), a New Delhi-based Think-Tank. He works on issues related to development economics, involving development finance, SDGs and South-South Cooperation, apart from trade, investment and innovation linkages with special focus on WTO. Professor Chaturvedi has persistenly endeavoured to build up institutions and launching of networks, both at national and international levels. He is credited with the launch of Network of Southern Think Tanks (NeST) and Forum for Indian Development Cooperation (FIDC). He has also created “Delhi Process”, a major forum for exchange of ideas on South-South and triangular Cooperation. Professor Sachin Chaturvedi has been part of several important initiatives of the Government of India and takes keen interest in transforming economic policymaking towards integrated and evidence based approaches. He is one of the foremost commentators on India’s external sector economic engagements and partnerships. He is considered as most dynamic and affable by his peers and has mentored several bright scholars and researchers in the profession. He has authored/edited more than 22 books, apart from contributing several chapters in the edited volumes and also publishing several research articles in prestigious journals. He is on the Editorial Board of several journals including the South Asian Economic Journal, IDS Bulletin, Sussex, UK among others. His book “The Logic of Sharing – Indian Approach to South-South Cooperation” has been acclaimed internationally as one of the best volumes on international development cooperation. Professor Sachin Chaturvedi was also the ‘Global Justice Fellow’ at the MacMillan Center for International Affairs at Yale University (2009-2010) and has served as a Visiting Professor at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) and was a Developing Country Fellow at the University of Amsterdam (1996), Visiting Fellow at the Institute of Advanced Studies, Shimla (2003), and Visiting Scholar at the German Development Institute (2007). Currently, Prof. Chaturvedi is also Independent Director on the Board of Reserve Bank of India.

Dr. Neena Malhotra

Secretary (South), Ministry of External Affairs, GoI,
Member, Governing Board

Dr. Neena Malhotra joined the Indian Foreign Service (IFS) in the year 1992. She has served as Ambassador of India to Italy and San Marino from September 2020 to April 2024. During this period, she also served as Permanent Representative of India to Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and World Food Program (WFP), representing India on FAO Council, as member of Program and Finance Committees of FAO, as Chair of Evaluation Committee of IFAD and on Executive Board of WFP. She also chaired the International Steering Committee of FAO on the Year of Millets 2023. On behalf of India, Dr. Malhotra got elected as President of the UNIDROIT General Assembly in Rome and served in that capacity for the year 2022-2023. Her earlier foreign assignments include Permanent Delegation of India (PDI) to UNESCO in Paris; and CGI, New York. Recently, she was appointed as India’s Ambassador to Sweden but could not join due to family constraints. At the Headquarters of the Ministry, she served as Additional Secretary (Indo-Pacific) covering Indo-Pacific, Indian Ocean Region (IOR) and Southern Divisions of MEA. She has been Head of the Divisions of Passport, Visas (PV), SAARC, E governance & Information Technology (EG&IT), and East & Southern Africa (E&SA). In her stint as Head of E&SA Division, in addition to bilateral relations with 17 countries of Eastern and Southern Africa, she was in charge of relations with African Union (AU), African RECs, India-Africa Forum Summit (IAFS) matters including training programs and all-Africa policy matters. Most recently, as Officer on Special Duty (Political), she was dealing with matters pertaining to many SIDS countries. She has also handled work in Americas, BSM, South East Asia & Pacific Divisions covering 26 countries and External Publicity Desks. Academically, a Plant Physiologist, Dr. Malhotra holds M.Sc. and Ph. D degrees from the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), New Delhi and has published research papers in the Indian Journal of Plant Physiology. Prior to joining IFS, she was selected as Scientist S-1 based on ARS exam conducted at All India level. She has been a holder of IARI, PG Fellowship for the years 1987-89, and 1989-1992; ICAR Fellowship 1987-89 (Did not Avail); and All India Post Graduate Scholarship for the year 1986-87. Among the in-service training programs done by her include, 27th Study Session at the International Institute of Human Rights, Strasbourg, France (July 1996); Summer Program for Foreign Policy Officials, New School, New York, June-July 1998; Workshop on Biological and Toxins Weapons Convention, 2001, The Hague, Netherlands and 5th CORE program conducted by Indian Defence Ministry 2012. She studied French language from Institut Catholique and Sorbonne University of Paris and holds an Advanced Diploma in French language. She speaks fluent Hindi, English and Punjabi.

Dr Sunil Kumar Barnwal

Additional Secretary (Education), Ministry of Education, GoI,
Member, Governing Board.

Additional Secretary, Department of Higher Education, Ministry of Education,  since June 2023. 
• Joint Secretary, Ministry of Home Affairs from December 2020 to June 2023.
• Additional Member, Board of Revenue, Government of Jharkhand from February 2020 to November 2020.
• Secretary to the Chief Minister, Government of Jharkhand from March 2014 to December 2019. During this period, several key initiatives and reforms were undertaken that led the state to leapfrog in development.
• Secretary, Department of Industries, Mines & Geology, Government of Jharkhand. During this tenure first-ever “Momentum Jharkhand- Global Investors Summit” was successfully organised and investors’ interests were pursued to ground several industrial projects. Several new policies were made and in the ease of doing business the state jumped from 24th position to 4th position due to several reforms undertaken. As Secretary, Mines, I represented in Board of Directors of CCL and BCCL, two subsidiaries of Coal India Ltd. located in Jharkhand
• Secretary, Department of Information Technology, Government of Jharkhand. New IT/ITeS Policy, BPO/BPM Policy, ESDM Policy and Start up Policy were made during the tenure.
• Director, Ministry of IT & Electronics, Government of India, where worked on Digital India and Internet Governance.
• Additional Finance Commissioner, Government of Jharkhand
• Deputy Commissioner-cum-District Magistrate of Dhanbad, Jamshedpur, Deoghar, Chatra, Pakur districts in Jharkhand
• Director, census operations, Jharkhand under government of India. In this tenure Census 2011 was successfully conducted in the state.
• Jharkhand State Rural Employment Guarantee (NREGA) Commissioner
• Inspector General of Prisons, Government of Jharkhand. In this post 1 several correctional reforms like art school, computer training centre, Literacy, education & spiritual programme were started. Further, through the use of technology like Prisoners Management System, Visitors Management System, Video conferencing between jails & courts, e-visit from common service centre (CSC) etc. prisons management were made more efficient.
• State Project Director, Sarva Siksha Abhiyan (SSA), Jharkhand
• Director, Information Technology, Government of Jharkhand
• Officer on Special Duty (OSD) to Hon’ble Governor of Jharkhand
• Engineer (Petroleum) in Gas Authority of India Limited before joining IAS

Dr. S. Siddharth

Additional Chief Secretary, Govt. of Bihar,
Member, Governing Board

Dr. S. Siddharth, I.A.S., is a 1991 batch officer and currently serves as Additional Chief Secretary of Bihar, with additional charges in finance, home, and cabinet secretariat. He has a strong educational background, including degrees from IIT Delhi and IIM Ahmedabad, and a doctorate in Information Technology. His career includes significant roles like District Magistrate in multiple Bihar districts and key positions in urban development and industrial policy-making. Dr. Siddharth has been instrumental in drafting major policies, such as the Bihar Urban Planning Act 2014 and Bihar Industrial Policy 2016, impacting Bihar’s growth.

Shri Anand Kishore

Chairman, Bihar School Education Board, Govt. of Bihar,
Member, Governing Board

Anand Kishor is the current Chairman of the Bihar School Examination Board (BSEB). He cleared the UPSC Civil Services Examination in 1996 with an All India Rank of 8, and holds degrees from IIT Kanpur (B.Tech and M.Tech in Electrical Engineering).
His early career included roles such as District Magistrate in various districts and Secretary in departments like Education, Health, and Urban Development, showcasing his versatility.
His reforms at BSEB included:
IT Integration: He built an entire IT team, including roles like Director IT and System Analyst, which was previously non-existent at BSEB. This team was crucial for digitizing processes, as detailed in an interview with COBSE .
Online Felicitation System for Students (OFSS): Introduced in 2018, this system facilitated online admissions for Class XI, enhancing transparency and efficiency, as noted in a Times of India article .
Timely and Fair Examinations: Through IT software, BSEB ensured examinations were conducted smoothly, with results published ahead of other boards since 2019, earning recognition for excellence.
These innovations were recognized with the Prime Minister’s Award for Excellence in Public Administration in 2022, awarded for “Multiple Innovations and Extensive Reforms in Examination Systems and Processes in Bihar School Examination Board” .

Shri Prasoon Joshi

Member, Governing Board

Shri Prasoon Joshi is the Chairman of Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) and member, Board of trustees of Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA) and Prime Minsters’ Museum, Nehru Memorial Museum & Library (NMML). National Award Winner, Padma award recipient, Prasoon Joshi is an acclaimed songwriter, writer and industry leader. He exemplifies the rare breed of creativity and leadership. His creativity as a Writer-Poet permeates the arena of celebrated Indian Feature Films where he is a celebrated and award winning Song and Screenwriter. He creates unique content that inspires and propels positive change in the society. Shri Joshi is widely recognised in the country for keeping the great tradition of classic poetry alive in the mass consciousness. Through his intellectual and artistic ability, he has rekindled the faith that one can give constructive direction to the society through high calibre work in the popular genre. Shri Joshi is also an internationally acclaimed Advertising and Communication icon who has built mega brands internationally and credited with bringing Indian creative thinking to the international stage. He was the first Asian to chair the International Cannes Lion Titanium awards. He has also been designated as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum. Shri Joshi been honored with the prestigious National award by the President of India twice, and won all the popular awards like Filmfare, IIFA, Screen multiple times. He was awarded honorary doctorate by Uttarakhand Kumaoun University for his artistic contribution. He has authored many books, his first at the age of 17 and his latest “Thinking Aloud" in January 2019. He is also a columnist writing on branding and social issues in leading business and daily publications. Through his multifaceted pursuits, and content creation uniquely where keeping cinema is at the centre of it, he has positively impacted the public consciousness and has emerged as an iconic socio cultural voice that resonates across segments today in India.

Prof. Manjul Bhargava

Member, Governing Board

Manjul Bhargava (b 1974) is the youngest full professor of mathematics at Princeton University. His research interests span algebraic number theory, combinatorics, and representation theory. He graduated from Harvard University in 1996 and received his doctorate from Princeton in 2001, working under Andrew Wiles. His breakthrough Ph.D. thesis surprised the mathematical community by generalizing the classical Gauss composition law for quadratic forms to many other situations. Bhargava has won several awards for his research, including the AMS–MAA–SIAM Frank and Brennie Morgan Prize, a Clay Research Fellowship, the Clay Research Award in 2005, and the Leonard M. and Eleanor B. Blumenthal Award for the Advancement of Research in Pure Mathematics. He was named one of Popular Science Magazine’s “Brilliant 10” in November 2002. He recently won the American Mathematical Society's Cole Prize in number theory and the SASTRA Ramanujan Prize for his outstanding contributions to number theory.

Shri Anand Mahindra

Member, Governing Board

Mr. Anand Mahindra is the Chairman of the Mahindra Group and Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd. His tenure has seen the Group expand domestically and internationally into a range of major industrial sectors from automobiles and agriculture to IT and aerospace. The Group has also grown inorganically through acquisitions such as Swaraj Tractors, Reva Electric Car Company, Satyam Computer Services, Peugeot Motorcycles, Aerostaff Australia, Holiday Club Resorts, and Pininfarina S.p.A. He has served on several influential bodies, national and international. These include the Reserve Bank of India Board, UN Global Compact Board, Global Board of Advisors of the Council on Foreign Relations, World Bank Group’s Advisory Board for Doing Business and the International Advisory Council of Singapore’s Economic Development Board. He has been the President of The Confederation of Indian Industry and served on the boards of the National Stock Exchange of India and the National Council of Applied Economic Research. He is currently on the board of Invest India, the National Investment Promotion and Facilitation Agency. Mr. Mahindra has been conferred with the Padma Bhushan Award (2020), India's third-highest civilian honour, for his contribution to the nation in the field of ‘Trade and Industry’. He has been named in Barron's List of Top 30 CEOs worldwide (2016) and Fortune Magazine’s list of the World’s 50 Greatest Leaders (2014). He was a recipient of the Best Transformational Leader Award by the Asian Centre for Corporate Governance & Sustainability (2012). He was appointed ‘Knight in the National Order of the Legion of Honour’ by the President of the French Republic (2016) and conferred the 'Grand Officer of the Order of the Star of Italy' by the President of Italy (2013). Mr. Mahindra is an incisive business commentator and humanitarian with over 10 million followers on Twitter. Among his many social change initiatives is the Nanhi Kali programme, which, for the last two decades, has provided over 330,000 underprivileged girls access to high-quality education. Mr. Mahindra is the Chairman of the Board of Naandi Foundation, India’s leading NGO focused on educating girls, skilling youth and providing sustainable livelihoods to small farmers through biodynamic agriculture. Mr. Mahindra also serves on the Founders Board of The Rise Fund, a $2 billion impact fund. He is a strong votary of arts and culture. Mahindra Blues, Mahindra Excellence in Theatre Awards and Mahindra Sanatkada celebrate and nurture music, theatre culture, art and history in India. Mr. Mahindra is the member of the Global Advisory Council of the Lincoln Center, New York and has previously served on the Board of Trustees of the Natural History Museum of London. In 2014, Mr. Mahindra founded the Pro Kabaddi League to popularize the ancient and popular Indian game of kabaddi. The league, televised through the STAR television network, is aimed at creating a new popular fan following for Kabbadi as an antithesis to cricket. Mr. Mahindra graduated from Harvard College (1977) and secured an MBA from Harvard Business School ( 1981 ).

Shri Venu Srinivasan

Member, Governing Board

Venu Srinivasan is Chairman Emeritus of TVS Motor Company, one of the largest two-wheeler manufacturers in the world and Sundaram-Clayton Limited, a leading manufacturer of automotive components in India. He is also the Vice Chairman of Tata Trusts, India’s most respected and largest philanthropic foundation and the majority shareholder of the Tata group. He is a Director on the Central Board of Reserve Bank of India. He holds an engineering degree from the College of Engineering, Chennai, India and a Master’s in management from Purdue University, USA. Mr Srinivasan has held various important positions in the Indian Industry, such as the President, Confederation of Indian Industry and the President, Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers. He has several prestigious awards to his credit including the Padma Bhushan, the third-highest civilian award of India. The distinguished civilian honour “Order of Diplomatic Merit” (Heung-In Medal) was conferred by the President of Korea for his valuable contribution to promote Korea-India bilateral relations. He was awarded the Deming Distinguished Service Award for Dissemination and Promotion (Overseas) Award (2019) by Japanese Union of Scientists and Engineers (JUSE); the Ishikawa-Kano Award (2012) by the Asian Network of Quality, the apex body for quality in Asia. Under his leadership, his companies were awarded the Deming Prize and the Japanese Quality Medal in 2002. He was awarded the Life Time Achievement Award by the CNBC TV18 India Business Leadership Awards in the year 2023. His commitment of competitiveness and quality of our economy is manifested through his company’s market presence in more than 80 countries across the globe. Mr Srinivasan’s dedication to the transformation of rural India by empowering women in the rural areas can be seen through his passion towards setting up the Srinivasan Services Trust which has touched the lives of 1.6 million people in 2500 villages across the country in the last 27 years. Mr Srinivasan is the Chairman of InKo Centre (The Indo-Korean Cultural and Information Centre) which is a non-profit society set up in 2006 with support from TVS Motor Company and Hyundai Motor India Limited to promote a sustainable, meaningful intercultural dialogue between India and South Korea.