TEAM
Meghna Bal
Director
Meghna is a lawyer with deep experience in media and emerging technology. Previously, she worked on legal and policy strategy at the Walt Disney Company. Before Disney, she set up and led the India office for Consensys, the world’s largest blockchain technology company.
Mohit Chawdhry
Fellow
Mohit is a law graduate from National Law University Delhi, his interests include intellectual property, technology development and regulation as well as Constitutional and Sports Law. Outside of law, he enjoys working on issues relating to economics and the social sector, particularly the Health sector.
Shweta Venkatesan
Fellow
Shweta is a lawyer with a deep interest in the regulation of emerging technologies. Prior to joining the Esya Centre she worked at Koan Advisory Group, where she provided leading technology companies with policy advisory across areas such as data protection, competition, and platform regulation. She holds an LL.M. in IT and Data Law from the London School of Economics and Political Science and a B.A. LL.B (Hons.) degree from National Law University Delhi.
Dr. Vikash Gautam
Adjunct Fellow
Vikash is an economist who has steered economic research on behalf of numerous public and private sector entities. He has over 13 years of research and teaching experience at leading institutions, such as the Jawaharlal Nehru University, Indian Institute of Management Shillong, Institute for Studies in Industrial Development, and Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research. He has published over a dozen articles on economic and policy issues in leading peer-reviewed journals.
Dr. Megha Patnaik
Adjunct Fellow
Megha is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Economics and Finance at LUISS Guido Carli in Rome, Italy. In 2017, she received her PhD in Economics from Stanford University in California, USA. Her current research covers topics in labour, corporate finance, macroeconomics, entrepreneurship and the economics of innovation. She has previously worked as a Visiting Assistant Professor at the Indian Statistical Institute in New Delhi, a data scientist for a leading financial software firm in Silicon Valley and has also developed & conducted firm surveys with the US Census Bureau as well as the Atlanta Fed on management and uncertainty. Earlier, she completed her BSc in Mathematics from St. Stephen's College in New Delhi, India and her MSc in Econometrics and Mathematical Economics from the London School of Economics in the UK.
Aastha Prasad
Adjunct Fellow
Aastha Prasad is a DPhil candidate at the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies (CSLS), University of Oxford. She is supervised by Professor Fernanda Pirie. She holds an MSc in Law, Anthropology and Society from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), London, United Kingdom. She also holds a BA in Liberal Arts and Sciences (major in International Justice and minor in World Politics) from Leiden University College (LUC), Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs, Leiden University, the Netherlands. Aastha is also active as an artist and has previously won the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights’ artwork competition.
Dr. Ajai Garg
Adjunct Fellow
Dr. Garg is a veteran technocrat who has played a pivotal role in India's digitalisation initiatives. In his prior role as Senior Director at the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), he spearheaded the International Cooperation Division. He continues to be an influential figure in various Track II and Track 1.5 initiatives.
Sanket Kashyap
Adjunct Fellow
Sanket Kashyap has been a Lead ML Engineer at Level AI since August 2019. Before this, he worked as a Research Associate at the Trivedi Centre for Political Data and as an Undergraduate Teaching Assistant at Ashoka University. He graduated with a Bachelor's Degree in Computer Engineering from Delhi College of Engineering and also holds a Master of Arts degree in Liberal Arts with a concentration in Computer Science from Ashoka University.
Tamanna Sharma
Associate Fellow
Tamanna is a Physics graduate from Miranda House, University of Delhi, and holds a Post Graduate Diploma in Statistics from the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI). Her interests include policy and regulation around emerging technologies such as Virtual Digital Assets, AI, Machine Learning, as well as new forms of Digital Media. She is also deeply passionate about entrepreneurship and sustainability.
Akanksha dutta
Associate Fellow
Akanksha holds a masters in law from National Law University Delhi, her research interests lie in intellectual property and technology law and policy, especially their intersection with emerging technologies like AI. She was previously a Research Assistant to the DPIIT-IPR Chair at National Law University Delhi. In her spare time she is an avid reader and reviewer of fiction novels.
Chhavi Pathak
Research Assistant
Chhavi is a law graduate from CHRIST (Deemed to be University) with a keen interest in researching policy and regulations surrounding emerging technologies, intellectual property rights, and competition law. In her spare time, she enjoys exploring GNU systems and learning new languages.
Khalid Jaleel
Programme Coordinator
Khalid serves as the Programme Coordinator at the Esya Centre and is also the Deputy Director at the International Summer School, New Delhi. Prior to this, he served as the Program Coordinator for the Centre for Escalation of Peace, which is focused on establishing programs that focus on empowering young minds. He earned his Bachelor’s degree in International Studies from the University of South Alabama, USA and a Master’s degree in Political Science from Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi.
Spandana singh
Non-resident Fellow
Spandana is a Policy Analyst at New America's Open Technology Institute in Washington, DC. She previously served as a Millennial Public Policy Fellow at New America, as the 2018 Young Professionals in Foreign Policy Cybersecurity and Technology Fellow and as a Public Policy Fellow at Twitter's headquarters in San Francisco. Ms. Singh holds a dual Bachelor's degree in international development and media studies from the University of California, Berkeley.
Shohini Sengupta
Non-resident Fellow
Shohini is an Assistant Professor of Research at the Jindal School of Banking and Finance. Prior to this she was a Senior Resident Fellow at the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy and has also worked for the Government of India as an energy lawyer. She has assisted the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, financial sector regulators, and the Fifteenth Finance Commission on several socio-economic and legal matters. She has a bachelor’s degree in law from the National Law Institute University, Bhopal, and a master’s degree in Law and Finance from the University of Oxford on a leadership scholarship.
aishwarya giridhar
Non-resident Fellow
Aishwarya is a lawyer whose areas of interest include internet governance, free speech, and intellectual property. She also enjoys working on issues relating to competition, labour and technology. She has previously worked as an associate at Khaitan & Co. and is a graduate of the West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences, Kolkata.
Shivangi Mittal
Non-resident Fellow
Shivangi is a technology policy consultant. She conducts research on market structure, regulation, consumer welfare in Intellectual Property, and technology-centric industries. Some of the key topics that she has worked on include market structure and competition in media markets, consumer welfare in the digital payments industry, and collective copyright licensing in India. Her commentaries have been published on leading platforms such as: The Daily Pioneer, The Wire, and The Print. She has a Masters in Finance and Economics from the University of Warwick, and a Bachelor’s in Economics from Hindu College, University of Delhi.
Megha Bahree
Non-resident Fellow
Megha is an award-winning journalist with nearly 20 years of experience reporting stories from across the Indian subcontinent and parts of Asia and the US. She’s currently based in New Delhi as a freelancer where she writes about business, technology and policy and their impact on society for a range of publications including Forbes Asia Magazine, Nikkei Asian Review, Al Jazeera and Wired online. In the past she has worked at Forbes US, the Wall Street Journal, Thomson Reuters and AFP.