Wafa Singh Editor

Prof. Manju Singh is Professor of Economics, Dept of Humanities and Social Sciences. Malviya National Institute of Technology Jaipur. Post Doctorate in Public Policy from the London School of Economics, United Kingdom, Prof. Singh has more than ten years of experience as Full Professor (Direct Selection) with almost 29 years of experience in research and over two decades of experience of postgraduate and undergraduate teaching as an academic faculty in the field of economics. She has founded and commanded PhD Programme with proven quality processes and high-quality research output in multi faculties areas in one of the best Deemed to be Universities in Pune. She is presently working in the the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Malaviya National Institute of Technology Jaipur, innovatively with a passion to achieve a socially responsible system of higher education. Prof. Singh has evolved an interdisciplinary approach and applied aspect in all attempts. She is a keen project planner, strategist and implementer with demonstrated abilities in devising activities and organizing multidimensional events of social engineering on campus and out of campus. The focus areas of her expertise include Innovation in higher Education, Gender mainstreaming, Technology Diffusion, Social Engineering, Development Economics, Public Policy.

Prof. Singh has led various projects with prestigious institutions, think tanks and forums. She is also a reviewer of various prestigious peer-reviewed journals like Harvard Business Review, Sage, Taylor and Francis and has twelve PhD awards (four as co-guide) under the supervision on the issues of gender, technology, public policy, human development and environmental vulnerability. She has held esteemed positions in various prestigious international and national level forums such as that of Hub Coordinator, Knowledge for Change UNESCO Chair for Community based Participatory Research. Prof Singh has been awarded with various prestigious awards like Sir Ratan Tata Fellowship Award 2011-12,London School of Economics, London.UK for demonstrating her efficient academic, research, administrative skills.

Purva Bhatt is presently a research scholar at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Malaviya National Institute of Technology Jaipur (MNIT Jaipur), and is also a recipient of Institutional Assistantship by MNIT Jaipur. The topic of her doctoral thesis is “Democratization of Technological Knowledge: Connecting Campus with Community.” As a community-based participatory researcher, she has worked on several national and international research projects in association with prestigious institutions. She has also worked in the capacity of Research Co-Director with Union College, New York, on an Ethnographic research project. She has formerly worked as an Assistant Professor of Sociology at St. Xavier’s College Jaipur. Purva is also the recipient of the prestigious HH Dalai Lama Gurukul Fellowship conferred by the Foundation of Universal Responsibility of His Holiness Dalai Lama. As a student, she has remained a Gold Medalist and has been awarded by the Hon’ble Governor for exhibiting excellence in academics. Apart from academics, she has remained a national-level debater, five-time national handball player, and an enthusiast for theatrics.

In the capacity of a researcher, she has published various Scopus-indexed research papers and articles in the editorial section of reputed journals and newspapers. She is also associated with various reputed forums such as Rashtriya Samaj Vigyan Parishad and the Indian Sociological Society, which primarily works on fostering knowledge democracy and decoloniality of Social Sciences. She is also a founding member of grassroots non-governmental organizations like Karuna and Bhatt Raja Sadashiv Foundation that influence policymaking and model innovations in action aimed at the transformational socio-political, economic and cultural impact on stakeholder communities.

Ms. Wafa Singh is a recipient of the Durban University of Technology (DUT) Doctoral Scholarship Scheme 2021, and is currently pursuing her doctoral studies at DUT, Durban, South Africa. Ms. Singh has a decade long work experience in the Higher Education sector and has worked extensively in the field of Social Responsibility & Community Engagement in Higher Education, in her capacity as the former India Research Coordinator of the UNESCO Chair in Community Based Research and Social Responsibility in Higher Education. In this role, she has contributed to many research projects, both at the national level (in collaboration with British Council, India) and at the international level (in collaboration with International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Canada, and The Social Sciences and Humanities and Research Council (SSHRC), Canada). Her work in this field includes publication of several journal articles and a co-edited book titled, ‘Knowledge and Engagement: Building Capacity for the Next Generation of Community Based Researchers’. She has also presented papers at the European Higher Education Society-EAIR Forum in Leiden, Netherlands in 2019; 2nd Higher Education Responsible Research and Innovation (HEIRRI) Conference in Vienna in 2018, among others. She is also a UNESCO Chair in Community Based Research and Social Responsibility in Higher Education certified ‘Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR) Trainer’ and has delivered several trainings on CBPR for academics and civil society practitioners from India and beyond.

Dr. Kumar Sambhav Pareek is currently working as an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science, Amity Institute of Social Sciences, Amity University Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh, India. Though he has obtained his Master and Ph.D. degree in Political Science, he believes in the philosophy of interdisciplinary research. He has more than 15 years of teaching and research. His main area of interest is Political Sociology, e-Government, Ancient Indian Polity, and Indian Political System. He is a keen observer of not only the Indian Political System but also of other developing and developed nations. He has published various research papers and articles in national and international journals along with the book chapters. He has authored one book on Primary unit of Indian Political System i.e. “Gram Panchayat”. Apart from this, he has also published a book on E-Governance titled “Stances of E-Government: Policies, Processes and Technologies” in 2018 with CRC Press. He is also the Life Member of Indian Political Science Association, Rajasthan Political Science Association and Indian Society for Gandhian Studies.