The Fellows
Dr M Ramachandran
Former Secretary, Government of India
M Ramachandran, PhD and MPhil in economic planning from University of Glasgow, UK, is former Secretary, Urban Development to Government of India and Principal Advisor to the SKOCH Development Foundation.
He has handled several national and international assignments. He was the First National Officer selected to be on deputation to United Nations Development Program (UNDP), India during 1986-1992. He was Principal Secretary, School/Higher/Technical Education in Uttaranchal and Principal Secretary to the Chief Minister before elevation to the position of Additional Chief Secretary & Infrastructure Development Commissioner and the Chief Secretary.
He was identified as the “Infrastructure Man” in the state of Uttaranchal where he took several new initiatives including public-private partnership projects, lining up $1 billion Asian Development Bank assistance for the Power, Road and Urban Sectors, $120 million World Bank assistance for the Drinking Water sector and so on.
As Secretary, MoUD, he steered the implementation of Jawaharlal Nehru Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM), in addition to many other city reform programmes.
He has authored six books, the three widely acclaimed ones being: An Alternative Approach to Project Planning in Public Works The Indian Context (2009); Urban Renewal and Policy Response (2009) (edited by Sameer Kochhar); and, Metro Rail Projects in India (2012) published by Oxford University Press.
Dr Deepali Pant Joshi
Former ED, Reserve Bank of India
Dr Deepali Pant Joshi is the former Executive Director of the Reserve Bank of India. She is a development Economist and a writer on economic subjects. Her professional responsibilities have included the Department of Currency Management, Legal Department and Premises Department. She was the First Appellate authority under the Right to Information Act, as well as the RBI nominee on the Governing Council of the Institute of Banking Personnel Selection (IBPS) and Director on the Board of Bharatiya Reserve Bank Note Mudran Private Limited (BRBNMPL).
Dr Joshi has also served as the RBI Regional Director of Rajasthan. Prior to her appointment as Executive Director, Dr Joshi was responsible for the Customer Service Department and Rural Planning and Credit Department.
Dr Joshi is a fellow of Harvard University Asia Centre where she did postdoctoral research in the areas of Finance and Economics. She holds a doctoral degree from the University of Allahabad and Law and Management degrees. She joined the Reserve Bank of India as a direct recruit in 1981 and has been with the Reserve Bank since. She has held several important professional responsibilities as Chief General Manager in charge of Urban Banks and Currency Management and administrative responsibilities at RBI Hyderabad. She was the Banking Ombudsman for the State of Andhra Pradesh and Principal, Bankers Training College and Director on the Board of Andhra Bank. Her previous professional responsibility was Chief General Manager in Charge of Rural Planning and Credit Department. She is a prolific writer and has four significant books to her credit. She renders faculty support to the College of Agricultural Banking and has lectured extensively at the IAS Academy at Mussoorie, at the Administrative Staff College, Hyderabad and at several Indian and foreign Universities. She has represented the RBI in several important International Conferences and is the India representative on the Financial Inclusion Expert Group of the G-20. Her policy interests lie in the area of welfare and development economics, law and currency management.
Dr N C Saxena
Former Member, NAC
NC Saxena is the Former Member of the National Advisory Council. A Rockefeller Foundation Fellow, he obtained his PhD from the University of Oxford, UK He specialises in rural development, natural resource management, rural livelihoods, poverty alleviation, watershed and drinking water, governance, decentralisation and people’s participation.
A member of Indian Administrative Services (IAS), Dr Saxena recently retired as Secretary, Planning Commission, Government of India. He was earlier, Secretary, Rural Development and Director at Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration, Mussoorie.
Author of repute, he has contributed to several research papers to various international journals and has written several widely acclaimed books. He is currently engaged as Consultant with UNICEF, World Bank, UNDP, European Union, GTZ, ADB, and DFID working on projects ranging from village planning, evaluation of urban poverty programmes, reforms in public distribution system, water and sanitation, land management and so on.
He was identified as the “Infrastructure Man” in the state of Uttaranchal where he took several new initiatives including public-private partnership projects, lining up $1 billion Asian Development Bank assistance for the Power, Road and Urban Sectors, $120 million World Bank assistance for the Drinking Water sector and so on.
Dr Deepak B Phatak
Director, SKOCH Development Foundation & Professor Emeritus, IIT-B, Mumbai
Dr Deepak B Phatak is Professor Emeritus at Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay, India. He graduated in Electrical Engineering from Indore and then completed his MTech and PhD in Computer Science. He is with IIT Bombay since 1971.
He served in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering till January 2000 and was the Department head from 1991 to 1994. He also served as the first Dean of Resource Development for IIT Bombay from 1995 to 1998. He was invited to head the Kanwal Rekhi School of Information Technology set up in October 1998 at the Institute.
He has been an eminent consultant and advisor to many organisations on various issues related to Information Technology.
In the financial sector, he has involved in a major effort by Industrial Development Bank of India, and has been an I.T. advisor to the State Bank of India for several years. He has also been a consultant to several other financial and industrial organisations like Reserve Bank of India, Unit Trust of India, Industrial Credit & Investment Corporation of India, Life Insurance Corporation of India, New India Assurance, Rashtriya Chemicals and Fertilisers, L&T, Times of India, etc.
He works on several committees advising Government departments on issues related to computerisation. Dr Phatak is on the boards of IDBI Bank, ISIL, UTIISL, NIBM, IDRBT, Bank of Baroda, and NIA. He has recently published an edited book entitled Infrastructure and Governance.
Ms Zohra Chatterji
Former Secretary, Government of India
Ms Zohra Chatterji was Secretary, Ministry of Textiles in the Government of India. She belongs to the 1979 Batch of the IAS, UP Cadre and has held several important positions in her home state including Secretary and Director Industries. Labour Commissioner, Secy & DG Tourism, Secy & Project Director Basic Education etc. Her last assignment in UP was Principal Secy IT & Industries when she was awarded the Prime Minister’s Award for Excellence in Public Administration.
She joined Govt. of India on Central deputation in 2007 as Joint Secretary Broadcasting in the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting. The issue of broadcast regulation/self-regulation came to the fore during her tenure and the Electronic Media Monitoring Centre was set up at this time. She became Member Secretary, National Commission for Women on promotion as Additional Secy and was associated with drafting landmark amendments to the Criminal Law Amendment Bill and the Act for Prevention of Harassment of Women at the Workplace. She went on to serve as Additional Secretary Coal where she also held additional charge of CMD Coal India as its first woman CMD and chaired the IMG for monitoring and deallocation of coal blocks. She became Secretary to Govt. of India Ministry of Textiles in Feb 2013. She has a passionate interest in handlooms and handicrafts and introduced many new initiatives for the same including the setting up of a Hastkala Academy in New Delhi for documentation, promotion and preservation of handicrafts.
Ms Chatterji is a graduate in Physics from Miranda House. New Delhi. She did her post-graduation in English Literature from AMU and had her schooling in Loreto Convent, Lucknow where she won the Inter-Loreto gold medal and trophy for the best all-around student for 3 years running. Her many interests include painting, photography, dramatics and writing.
Post-retirement, Ms Chatterji is serving on the Board of NCML as an independent Director. She is currently the President of Alliance Francaise de Lucknow an organisation for the promotion of French language and culture supported by the French Govt. ‘She has also been Chairperson of the UP Institute of Design.
Dr Neeta Verma
Former DG, NIC and Former Chief Advisor (IT), Election Commission of India
Dr. Neeta Verma is a distinguished technology leader with over 35 years of experience in driving digital transformation in the Government of India. She most recently served as Chief Advisor (Information Technology) to the Election Commission of India, where she led the IT initiatives supporting the conduct of elections, including the Lok Sabha Elections 2024, one of the largest democratic exercises in the world. She guided the development and operation of technology systems supporting the entire election lifecycle, from announcement to declaration of results, while also providing IT support for several State Assembly elections.
She is the former Director General of the National Informatics Centre (NIC) (2016–2022), India's premier government technology organization. During her tenure, she led the development of large-scale digital platforms and worked closely with the judiciary, central ministries, and state governments to accelerate digital governance. She championed a Mobile-First approach to expand citizen access to government services through mobile technologies.
Dr. Verma has been a strong advocate of citizen-centric digital governance. She led the establishment of MyGov, India's citizen engagement and crowdsourcing platform, and spearheaded the launch of the Government Open Data Platform along with the formulation of the Government Open Data License (GODL), promoting greater transparency and public access to government data.
She played a pivotal role in strengthening India's digital infrastructure by establishing national data centres, a nationwide webcast platform, NIC-CERT for cybersecurity, and MeghRaj, the Government of India's national cloud. She promoted a Cloud-First strategy that enabled scalable, agile, and cost-effective digital services across government.
To foster innovation, she established Centres of Excellence in Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain, Cyber Security, Microservices, and Data Analytics, enabling the adoption of emerging technologies in governance.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, she led NIC's technology response by ensuring uninterrupted digital infrastructure and managing Aarogya Setu, India's widely adopted public health application with over 170 million downloads. Under her leadership, NIC also developed numerous digital solutions for home quarantine, containment zones, COVID hospitals, lockdown management, digital passes, and direct benefit transfers.
She also guided the productization of several nationally adopted government platforms, including eOffice, eHospital, eProcurement, eAuction, eInvoice, and e-Abgari, while overseeing NIC's nationwide network of more than 800 offices across India.
Dr. Verma holds a Ph.D. from IIT Delhi and an Executive Certificate in Digital Transformation from Harvard Kennedy School. Her research interests include digital governance, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, cloud computing, and data centres. She has authored over 33 research papers, co-authored and edited books, and contributed to numerous national guidelines, white papers, and technology blueprints.
Dr Charan Singh
Former Secretary, Government of India
Dr Charan Singh was RBI Chair Professor at the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, India. Earlier, he was a Senior Economist at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Washington DC from August 2009 to November 2012. He was Director (Departments: Research; Debt Management) at the RBI from 1997–2009 where he had joined in 1984 as a Research officer in the Economic Department.
Singh earned his doctorate in Economics from the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia and was a visiting scholar (post-doctorate) for more than a year each at Department of Economics, Harvard University and the Stanford Center for International Development, Stanford University. Earlier, he had studied from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi; Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar; and Delhi University.
His research is published in different academic journals like Economic and Political weekly, Prajnan, RBI Occasional papers, Indian Journal of Economics and Business, Yojana, etc. He has also contributed articles in book volumes. He contributes in public debates thorough TV channels like Bloomberg, Rajya and Lok Sabha TV.
He also regularly writes articles for daily newspapers, both general like The Hindu, Indian Express, Hindustan Times, The Tribune, Deccan Herald and Deccan Chronicle; and economic papers like Economic Times, Business Standard, Business Line, The Financial Express, and MoneyControl.com
Dr Shefali Dash
Former DG, National Informatics Centre
Dr Shefali Dash, is Former DG, National Informatics Centre. She is PhD in Physics. Planning & Implementation of MIS and Decision Support Systems, development and implementation of e-Governance programmes, informatics development services and setting up of computer centres have been her forte. She has Implemented a number of national level projects like Rajiv Gandhi National Drinking Water Mission Computerization and Project Arrow.
Mr IPS Sethi
Director General, National Informatics Centre
Mr IPS Sethi, is Former DG, National Informatics Centre. She is PhD in Physics. Planning & Implementation of MIS and Decision Support Systems, development and implementation of e-Governance programmes, informatics development services and setting up of computer centres have been her forte. She has Implemented a number of national level projects like Rajiv Gandhi National Drinking Water Mission Computerization and Project Arrow.
Dr K G Karmakar
Former Managing Director, NABARD
Dr K G Karmakar, PhD, was Managing Director of National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD). With over 30 years of professional experience as an executive in various banking and financial institutions such as State Bank of India, Reserve Bank of India and NABARD, Dr Karmakar has specialised in agriculture/rural credit, corporate planning, micro-credit, project management and rural infrastructure development. He has many publications to his credit such as: Agricultural Project Management for Bankers; Rural Credit and Self-Help Groups and Microfinance in India. He has published more than 60 articles related to rural credit and rural development, some of which has been presented in national and international seminars.
He now Professor at SP Jain Institute of Management & Research (SPJIMR) for over 6 years, with a demonstrated history of working in the education management industry. Skilled in Business Planning, Banking, Entrepreneurship, Lecturing, and Venture Capital. Written over 147 published papers and 12 pioneering books on Microcredit, Fin. Inclusion and Rural Development.
Dr Sushil Kumar Dash
Former Professor and Head, Atmospheric Sciences (CAS), IIT Delhi
Dr Sushil Kumar Dash superannuated from the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (IITD) as a Professor and Head of the Centre for Atmospheric Sciences (CAS). He continued as Professor Emeritus for the next five years. He was the President of the Indian Meteorological Society (IMS) for the period 2018 to 2020. Currently, he is advisor in DST Centre of Excellence in Climate Change. Dr Dash is the Founder President of a charitable organization called Foundation for Education and Research in Climate Change (FERCC). In addition, he is Founder Member of the South Asian Meteorological Association (SAMA).
Mr Gopo Bihari Panda
Former Senior Advisor, Planning Commission
Mr Gopo Bihari Panda, MPhil in Sociology & Anthropology, is Former Senior Adviser, Planning Commission. He has worked in various capacities involving research and field work, planning, policy formulation and evaluation, plan allocations and monitoring. His areas of work included, gender, children, PwDs, drug and substance abuse across various ethnic communities, tribes and culturally diverse groups.
Mr Bhushan Mohan
Former Principal Consultant, NeGD
Mr Bhushan Mohan is an industry veteran and worked as Principal Consultant, NeGD, MeitY, Government of India. He was responsible for formulation of policies, guidelines and strategy for implementation of NeGP with a vision to bring public services within reach of every citizen. He has contributed extensively in areas of policy formulation, strategic planning, procurement and technology assessment.
Mr Madan Mohan
Former CGM, NABARD
Mr Madan Mohan is post graduate from IARI, IIM Ahmedabad and Asian Institute of Management, Manila. He did pioneer work in developing SHGs in the state of J&K, skillinag and financing of rural enterprises in Punjab. He was CGM, NABARD and CEO of NABARD Consulting. He engages with Ministry of Agriculture and is a faculty with National Institute of Banking studies and Corporate Management (NIBSCOM).
Mr Updesh Kumar Sharma
Former Adviser, Planning Commission
Mr Updesh Kumar Sharma is former Adviser (Infrastructure and S&T) Planning Commission and NITI Aayog. He is an Electrical Engineer, MBA and MA (Public Policy & Sustainable Development). He has played a key role in setting up Atal Innovation Mission at NITI Aayog. He has been on the Board of Central PSUs including NHPC and BHEL. He has participated in training programmes at Universities in the US, Australia, South Korea.
Mr Subodh Shukla
Former DDG, National Informatics Centre
Mr Subodh Shukla is a Mechanical Engineer from IIT-Kanpur, is Former Deputy Director General, National Informatics Centre. He is one of the rare professionals who worked on Mainframe Computers for years. After a brief stint abroad, he joined NIC in 1989. The I&B Ministry and its affiliates. He subsequently handled and implemented Aadhaar Enabled Biometric Attendance (AEBA).
Mr Surinder Singh Sur
Former Adviser, NITI Aayog
Mr Surinder Singh Sur is Former Adviser, NITI Aayog. He is MBA from University of Hull and a Master of Electrical Engineering from University of Delhi. He is now a visiting faculty including Aryabhatt Institute of Technology, Delhi and Pusa Institute of Technology. He also put together the blueprint for Integrated Energy Policy for India in 2008 and worked extensively across schemes like Ujwal Discom Assurance Yojana; and, Saubhagya Scheme.