NLSIU

Anindita is a political sociologist whose research interests include social movements, bureaucracies, the politics of welfare provisioning and democratic deepening. After a Masters in Development Studies from Institute of Development Studies (IDS), University of Sussex, UK, Anindita received an M.A. and Ph.D in Sociology from Brown University, USA.

Her research and teaching is motivated and informed by 15 years of public action work embedded in diverse policy settings. She has been associated with the Right to Work, Right to Information, and Right to Food campaigns. She has previously worked with the Government of Bihar and the Ministry of Rural Development on employment, social security, and land issues. She co-founded the organisation ‘Social Accountability Forum for Action and Research’ (SAFAR) in 2022 that works on strengthening transparency and accountability in public service delivery in collaboration with state and national governments and civil society.

Siddharth received an M.A. and Ph.D in political science from the Claremont Graduate University. He has previously held faculty positions at Azim Premji University, the Institute for Social and Economic Change, La Sierra University, and California State University. He is a member of the Lokniti Network and most recently a Research Fellow at the Saxena Center for Contemporary South Asia at Brown University (2023-25). 

He is also the co-author (with Suhas Palshikar) of a study on public opinion in India titled “Politics and Society between Elections: Public Opinion in India’s States.” His areas of interest are Citizenship and Urban governance, Subnational State Capacity, Public Opinion and Voter Behaviour, and Quantitative Methods.

Neha’s research interests include citizenship, border studies, bureaucracies, cross-border mobility, pastoralism, and multispecies ethnography. Her doctoral dissertation at the Centre for the Study of Law and Governance, Jawaharlal Nehru University, examined the relationship between law, bureaucracy, and citizenship through the lens of Pakistani Hindu migrants in Rajasthan. Her work engages with socio-legal questions of citizenship practices, documentary regimes and borders, using interdisciplinary and ethnographic approaches.

Prior to joining NLSIU, Neha taught at Miranda House, University of Delhi. She has also served as a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the IIT, Delhi.

After securing his MA from Delhi University, Chiangmong Khiamniungan completed his MPhil and PhD at the University of Hyderabad. His MPhil dissertation treated the interpretive disagreement between Pierre Hadot and Michel Foucault on the ancient Greco-Roman philosophical notions of the nature of the self while his PhD thesis sought to develop an extended account of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar’s egalitarian imagination. 

His primary interest and expertise lie in political philosophy/intellectual history. He also takes a keen interest in Naga politics and history. He has published and presented papers on all these areas.

Atishya’s research interests lie at the intersection of judicial efficiency, procedural reforms, and gender rights. At NLSIU, she aims to bring her strong research background and practical policy experience into the classroom. She completed her LL.M. in Human Rights Law at the University of Nottingham, where she was awarded the Developing Solutions Masters Scholarship.

Prior to joining NLSIU, Atishya worked extensively in the fields of public policy and judicial reform. Through her roles at organisations such as DAKSH and the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy, she has focussed on bridging the gap between law, technology, and policy. Her work has involved close engagement with judicial and government stakeholders to re-engineer administrative processes, simplify procedural rules, and improve overall access to justice in Indian courts. She is also committed to advancing diversity within the legal profession. She has written extensively on the underrepresentation of women in the judiciary and actively championed inclusive legal education during her tenure as a Director at the IDIA Charitable Trust.