This page is still under construction.

Introducing the panel of eminent speakers at the various events in connection with the fifth anniversary of the Liberty Institute.

• Swaminathan S. A. Aiyar is the Consulting Editor, The Economic Times. India's premiere economic and business newspaper. He is also known for his popular weekly column "Swaminomics" in The Sunday Times.

• Roger Bate founded the Environment Unit at the Institute of Economic Affairs in 1993 and co-founded the European Science and Environment Forum in 1994. He is also a visiting fellow at Liberty Institute, New Delhi. He has a PhD in land economics at the University of Cambridge (June 2000). He has recently been advising the South African Government on water policy. Dr Bate is the editor of What Risk? (Butterworth Heinneman, 1997), a collection of papers that critically assess the way risk is regulated in society. He has also written several scholarly papers and numerous shorter scientific articles, for newspapers and magazines, including The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, Accountancy and LM. His most recent book is Life's Adventure: Virtual Risk in a Real World (Butterworth Heinemann, 2000).

• Sauvik Chakraverti is the senior assistant editor at The Economic Times, New Delhi, and is the author of Antidote: Essays against the socialist Indian state (Macmillan 1999).

 
• Gurcharan Das is an author and commentator, management consultant and former CEO of Procter & Gamble India Ltd. His latest book is Unbound India (Viking, 2000).

• Bibek Debroy is the Director of Research at Rajiv Gandhi Institute for Contemporary Studies, New Delhi.

• Anil Gupta is  a Professor at the Indian Institute of Management at Ahmedabad.

• Barun S. Mitra is cofounder and presently the managing trustee of Liberty Institute, New Delhi. He is also a writer and commentator who has published widely in magaznies and newspapers, including The Wall Street Journal, The Economic Times, The Hindustan Times, The Poineer, The Telegraph, The Financial Express, Fortune India, The Freeman, and Freedom First.

• Sugata Mitra has taught and researched at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, HCL Limited, The Technical University of Vienna, Austria and United India Periodicals. He has worked with NIIT Limited in its formative years and has created that organisations instructional development and R&D laboratories. He is currently Chief Scientist and Senior Vice President with NIIT. His contributions include a number of inventions and first-time applications. Among other applications, he is credited with having started the database publishing industry (particularly the Yellow Page industry) in India and Bangladesh, as well as having implemented the first applications of digital multimedia and Internet based education in India. .His current interests include Edutainment, Cyberspace, Virtual Reality, Adaptive Systems, Cognitive Interfaces and Personality Storage Technologies.

• Julian Morris graduated from Edinburgh University with an MA in economics and holds Masters degrees from University College London (in environment and resource economics) and Cambridge University (in land economics), as well as a graduate diploma in law from Westminster University. Julian is the author or editor of many papers and books on environmental and technology issues, including Fearing Food (co-edited with Roger Bate) and most recently, Rethinking Risk and the Precautionary Principle (Butterworth-Heinemann, 2000). His articles and book reviews have appeared in The Financial Times, The Sunday Times, The Wall Street Journal Europe, The Daily Telegraph, Nature, and various other journals. Julian is also a regular commentator on radio and television, and has advised governments around the world on their technology policy. He is currently Director of the Environment and Technology Programme at the Institute of Economic Affairs in London, Co-Director of the International Policy Network, and Director of tScope Ltd, a technology strategy consultancy also based in London. He is also a visiting fellow at Liberty Institute, New Delhi.

 
• Anil Patel is Director of Action Research in Community Health and Development, Mangrol, in district Bharuch in Gujarat. ARCH is a rural health and development NGO. Dr. Patel  is a physician.

• Parth J. Shah is the President of Centre for Civil Society, New Delhi.

• Dinesh Singh is with the eGurukul.com, New Delhi

• James Tooley is a Professor of Education Policy at the Newcastle University, England. Prior to this he was Senior Research Fellow in the School of Education, University of Manchester. He is also Director of the Education Unit at the Institute of Economic Affairs, London, and a visiting fellow at the Liberty Institute. Professor Tooley gained his PhD from the Institute of Education, University of London and has held research positions at the University of Oxford’s Department of Educational Studies and the National Foundation for Educational Research. He has taught at Simon Fraser University, Canada, the University of Western Cape, South Africa, and as a mathematics teacher at schools in Zimbabwe. He is a columnist for Economic Affairs, and is author of Disestablishing the School (1995), Education without the State (1996), The Higher Education Debate (1997), and Educational Research: A Critique (with Doug Darby, 1998), The Global Education Industry (1999) and Education: The New Contract (2000).

Shashank Vira is Vice President of Schoolnet India Limited, an institution promoted by Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services (IL&FS).  Schoolnet is committed to enhancing the quality and delivery of education across the learner spectrum and learning segments.  Schoolnet is therefore dedicated to building an e-business in the Learning Training area, ranging from its K-10 Program to Corporate Training.

Shashank is Head of Pedagogy at Schoolnet.  He is responsible for developing curriculum structures, guiding and conducting research into education and learning, overseeing the pedagogical basis for content development and teacher training as well as faculty management.

Shashank has over 13 years of experience in academics and education.  He has been Head of the Research, Development and Consultancy Division of the Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations, one of India’s National Examining Boards.  He was closely associated with curriculum reform and pedagogical innovations at the high school and undergraduate university levels in India and the UK.  In addition, he has also been associated with the social infrastructure initiatives of corporate India, including interventions in education Shashank received his M. Phil. from the University of Cambridge.  He has also done graduate work in Physics at Brown University and holds an Honours degree (Bachelor of Science) in Physics from St. Stephen’s College at the University of Delhi, as well as professional teaching qualifications (Bachelor of Education).  He is currently a member of a number of committees and advisory groups at the national level in the area of education and training.

Mohammed Abdul Wajid is from the Federation of Private Schools, Hyderabad. This is an organisation that has over 500 schools catering to the needs of children from  mostly lower income families.

Comments and criticism are always welcome, please write to
Liberty Institute <liberty@nda.vsnl.net.in>
J-259, Saket, (2nd floor)
New Delhi 110 017. INDIA
Tel: 91-11-6512441 / 6528244, Fax: 91-11-6856992