SUMEDHA VERMA
Sumedha Verma is an Assistant Professor and Head of the Department of Political Science at Loreto College (Autonomous), Kolkata. She holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from The West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences (WBNUJS). Her doctoral thesis was on Contextualizing the Ideology of Hindutva Through a Case Study of Bengal: Socio-Political, Legal and Electoral Implications She completed her Master's in Political Science from Presidency University, Kolkata, with a specialization in Civil Society and Democracy, which continues to shape her teaching and research. Her academic interests include Indian politics, Indian political thought, democratic governance, constitutionalism, public policy, and South Asian politics. Beyond teaching and research, she is actively engaged in curriculum development, academic leadership, and scholarly engagement on contemporary political issues. Through her work, she seeks to bridge academic scholarship with policy-relevant perspectives, contributing to informed discourse on governance, democracy, and regional affairs, with particular emphasis on India and South Asia.
MAHALAYA CHATTERJEE
Dr. Mahalaya Chatterjee is Professor of Urban and Regional Economics in Department of Economics, Calcutta University. She was also the Director of Centre for Urban Economic Studies,a research centre specializing on urban studies in the same university till 2017. An alumnus of St.Xavier’s College and Department of Economics, Calcutta University, she has been engaged in research and teaching of economics for the last three decades. She coordinated a course on urban management and planning for the last five years. She has two books (on urban land economics and environmental management respectively) and published an edited volume on socio-economic perspectives of urban development in Howrah, the twin city of Kolkata. Apart from that, she has published numerous articles in national and international journals and edited volumes. She has also participated in seminars, conferences and workshops in India and abroad. She has been acting as reviewer in a number of journals and in the board of editors of few well-known journals like Urban India. She is also is in the advisory board of Globsyn Management Journal. Apart from teaching and research, she is also carrying on different administrative duties like heading the Department (2012-14) and chairing the Undergraduate Board of Studies in Economics in Calcutta University till 2017.She is also an academic member of Mahanirban Calcutta Research Group, Kolkata(member of Research Advisory Committee since 2023) and Athens Institute of Education and Research, Greece. She is a governing body member of South Asian Institute for Advanced Research and Development (SAIARD). She is a visiting professor of Impact Policy Research Institute, New Delhi. She is also an honorary fellow of BK School of Research, Shahzadpur, Bangladesh. She was associated as a project specialist (urban) in Indian Women Entrepreneurship Programme under the 21st Century Knowledge Initiative – a collaborative research project of Calcutta University with Claflin University, South Carolina, USA.
KINGSHUK CHATTERJEE
Kingshuk Chatterjee is a Professor in the Department of History, Calcutta University, and is associated with the Institute of Foreign Policy Studies, Kolkata. He has previously served as a Founding Professor in the Department of History, School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Shiv Nadar University and as a Fulbright Scholar-in-Residence at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. Chatterjee’s area of expertise is in Middle Eastern politics and he specialises in Political Islam in the Modern World, with particular reference to Iran. He is the author of Ali Shari’ati and the Shaping of Political Islam in Iran and A Split in the Middle: the Making of the Political Centre in Iran (1987-2004), and editor of multiple volumes on Middle Eastern politics and India’s relations with the Middle East. He is additionally a regular contributor on Indian foreign policy and global politics across newspapers, periodicals and academic journals. His most recent publication is (with Surbek Biswas) Chambers Book of Indian Election Facts (2024).
