Executive Director, Bharti Institute of Public Policy, Associate Professor of Public Policy, Chair - Intitutional Review Board

ashwini_chhatre@isb.edu

Ashwini Chhatre is an Associate Professor of Public Policy at the ISB.  As the Academic Director of the Bharti Institute, Prof. Chhatre is responsible for identifying research priorities and setting the overall direction of the institute. His research interests broadly centre on the interactions between democratisation, economic development, and environmental governance.

Policy Director - Bharti Institute of Public Policy

aarushi_jain@isb.edu

Aarushi Jain has wide experience and expertise in the Public Policy domain as a faculty, administrator as well as a project specialist. She is currently working as the Associate Director of Bharti Institute of Public Policy, Indian School of Business. She is Ph.D (Pub Admn), Double Post Graduate (Pub Admn and HR), UGC-NET/JRF/SRF and an Accredited Management Teacher (AMT) in Public Policy. She has been a visiting scholar at Duke University, USA.

She has previously worked as Chairman, Rural Development and CSR, International Chamber of Service Industry and at various institutions including the National Institute of Technology, Hamirpur, Indus International University and Himachal Consultancy Organization etc. She is a visiting faculty to various premier institutions including NCGG, LBSNAA, HIPA, IGNFA, IIAS, NACIN etc. She has had a long association with National Centre for Good Governance, LBSNAA, Mussourie, for research studies as state coordinator for Punjab and Himachal.

Dr. Jain has published a book on “Public Private Partnership and Corporate Social Responsibility” and has more than 40 publications in leading international and national journals. Her research interests include Public Policy and Governance, Corporate Social Responsibility, Rural Development, Education and Women and Girl Child issues. She has been a national level table tennis player and an international level quiz wizard. Dr Aarushi Jain takes keen interest in social work. Being the President of Redcross HWS in various districts of Himachal Pradesh,

she has worked extensively on social issues as women empowerment, save the girl child campaign, health and education etc. She has been honoured and acclaimed for her efforts on various occasions, both at the state and national level. 

Associate Director

deepti_soni@isb.edu

Deepti Soni has over two decades of professional experience in the field of communications, media and external and internal stakeholder management. With a PG in Advertising and Public Relations from the Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC), New Delhi, she is presently working as the Associate Director at the Bharti Institute of Public Policy at the Indian School of Business. Previously she has worked as a Spokesperson and Head of Communications at the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) regional delegation covering India, Nepal, Bhutan and the Maldives; Head of Digital Diplomacy and Media & Communications Adviser at the British High Commission in New Delhi; and The Times India. As an outreach specialist she has trained multiple groups on digital communications and using data & visualisations.

She has worked extensively in the field of diversity and inclusion, education of girl child, prevention of maternal mortality and respectful maternal care, inclusive and progressive agriculture, climate change, new and renewable energy to name a few. She is also an experienced crisis communicator.

Project Lead

amrita_chakraborty@isb.edu

Before joining the Bharti Institute, Amrita was working as a Sr. Academic Associate (Teaching Assistant) in ISB for the Management and Executive Programmes. Her previous association with IIM Bangalore as an Intern introduced and equipped her to the research areas of Finance and Accounting and have been strengthened with her experience at ISB. Amrita's interests are in the areas of Corporate Governance, Initial Public Offerings, Financial Modelling & Investment research, Financial Analysis and Valuation. She holds an MBA in Finance from School of Management, KIIT University. She likes to play tunes on her Sitar when not working.

Project Specialist

apurva_d@isb.edu

Apurva holds a Masters degree in Natural Resources and Governance from Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai.  In her six years of working at the Bharti Institute, she has been actively engaged with projects related to the governance of natural resources including the Forest Governance project, Initiative on Forest Economy in Himachal Pradesh, International Forestry Resources and Institutions (IFRI). She is also the co-editor of the book titled, “Lakhpati Kisan: Transforming Agriculture-Based Livelihood for Smallholder Farmers in India”. She has also been developing modules for capturing data on livelihood interventions in agriculture, livestock, and forests delivered through a network of community-based institutions in four states of Central India covering ~80,000 households across 17 districts. She has also been instrumental in designing the system for extracting variables of interest from satellite data products under the India Data Portal project. Apurva has a passion for various dance forms and is an avid dancer.

Sr Content Developer

avantika_sharma@isb.edu

With a Bachelor’s degree in English from Panjab University, and a Master’s degree in Journalism and Mass Communication from Guru Jambeshwar University, Avantika has worked with Rediffusion as a filmmaker; Creative Director in a Media Education institute; Content Developer for a Canadian company, and as Language Learning Specialist creating blended learning softwares for government and private stakeholders. Having studied film and television direction from New York Film Academy, London, and Whistling Woods International, Mumbai, she learnt the nuances of Screenwriting from Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, London, and of Cinematography from the Asian Academy of Film and T.V., Noida. She had also been associated with several Punjabi and Hindi feature films as an Assistant Director. Avantika enjoys travelling and singing, apart from psychology, which she has pursued for five years with enthusiasm.

Principal Data Scientist

gursharan_singh@isb.edu

Gursharan is an experienced Programmer and a Data Professional holding a Master's degree in Information Technology. He is currently working as a Senior Data Scientist at the Bharti Institute of Public Policy, Indian School of Business (ISB), Mohali. Prior to ISB, he worked as a Team Lead & Manager in the AI Department of Netsmartz, Chandigarh. He has worked in a variety of roles in the software industry, healthcare, and taxation domain. A large portion of his work revolved around developing data-oriented solutions with involvement in the application's full-stack (front-end & back-end). He has experience in data modelling, architecting python backends, data Management (ETL), data wrangling, planning & execution of AI solutions. The specific fields of AI which he has worked in are predictive analytics, forecasting, computer vision, and natural language processing.

 Data Scientist

karan_khatke@isb.edu

Karan holds a Bachelors in Technology degree (Mechanical) and Masters in Technology (Thermal) Engineering from RGPV University. Previously, he worked at the Prestige Institute of Engineering Management and Research, Indore, as an Assistant Professor for seven years. Prior to that, he was associated with FDS Global as a Design Consultant reviewing engineering/design changes & resolving quality-related problems. Karan is enthusiastic and always ready to learn something new. During his free time, he loves to spend time with his family.

Sr Research Fellow

surya_kandukuri@isb.edu

Surya Kandukuri is an engineer coupled with 7+ years of experience as a Data Consultant and Project Lead in the realm of Databases, Data Mining, Data Acquisition – scraping, APIs and Web Services, Data Visualization, Data Journalism, Statistical Modelling, Open Data, Government Partnerships and Relations. His key areas of work include implementation of Open Data Policy of IT E&C Department, Government of Telangana since its inception, various partnerships with government/quasi-government organizations, and private organizations. He is also an alumnus of ISB’s Advanced Management Program in Business Analytics (AMPBA). His research interests lie in Agriculture, Employment, History. He enjoys philosophy, photography, art, and music.

Data Engineer

vijay_kumar@isb.edu

Vijay Kumar is Commerce graduate from Panjab University and a highly skilled data engineer with experience in designing and implementing decentralised web applications that utilise private blockchain networks like Ethereum and Polygon. He has a background in building real-time, fault-tolerant distributed applications using Elixir. Additionally, Vijay has experience in creating serverless web applications using infrastructure as code and has a strong interest in computer architecture and systems programming. His curiosity in digital computers led him to pursue a career as a software engineer. In his free time, Vijay delves into the world of philosophy, with a particular focus on epistemology and cognitive psychology.