School Choice Team

Parth J Shah, Chief Mentor

Dr Parth J Shah is President of the Centre for Civil Society, a think tank for public policy solutions within the framework of rule of law, subsidiarity, and competitive markets.

Parth's research and advocacy work centres on the themes of economic freedom (law, liberty and livelihood campaign), choice and competition in education (fund students, not schools), property right approach for the environment (terracotta vision of stewardship), and good governance (new public management and the duty to publish).

He has conceptualised and organised liberal educational programs for the Indian youth including Liberty & Society Seminars, Jeevika Livelihood Documentary Competition, and Researching Reality Internship Program. He has edited Morality of Markets, Friedman on India, Profiles in Courage: Dissent on Indian Socialism, Do Corporations Have Social Responsibility? and co-edited Law, Liberty & Livelihood: Making a Living on the Street; Terracotta Reader: A Market Approach to the Environment; BR Shenoy: Theoretical Vision and BR Shenoy: Economic Prophecies and Agenda for Change.

Parth is on the editorial board of EducationWorld, Vishleshan, and Khoj, and is informal advisor to many non-profits. He has taken liberal ideas to numerous national and international workshops and conferences and writes regularly in the popular media. He is the youngest Indian member of the Mont Pelerin Society.

Rashmi Sinha, Associate Director, School Choice Campaign

Rashmi is M.Ed, and has a Doctorate degree in Education ( Education of Cerebral Palsied Children). In November, 2008 she was recognized by Education World, a national monthly educational news magazine, as among 50 Leaders Redefining Indian Education. She was also a Member of NCF 2005. Prior to joining CCS, Rashmi worked with the Azim Premji Foundation as Program Lead in the Institute for Assessment and Accreditation New Delhi. Rashmi has over 18 years of professional work experience – in teaching, women’s empowerment, anti-human trafficking. She has also been the State Program Director, Mahila Samakhya, where she was instrumental in establishing Kasturba Gandhi Balika Schools (KGBV) in 16 districts of the state of U.P. At CSS, Rashmi works on Education policy, research and advocacy.

Shantanu Gupta, Associate Director, Advocacy

Shantanu has led large scale education programs (remedial education, SMCs, Early childhood education, school excellence program) for Naandi Foundation and worked for strengthening governance structures for child rights with UNICEF. He is an engineer by training, and has a MBA from from XLRI and MA in Development & Governance from University of Sussex. Before moving to the development sector, Shantanu worked as a process consulting expert in the private sector. At CCS, Shantanu manages state-level advocacy in education.

Abhishek Bhattacharya, Associate, Advocacy

Abhishek is an engineer by training. His passion in Politics led him to switch gears and take up the LAMP Fellowship conducted by PRS Legislative Research. Under the fellowship, he worked for a year with Dr. P.L. Punia (MP & Chairman, National Commission for Scheduled Castes). He worked on Parliamentary Questions/Bill Debates/Committee etc and was in-charge of seeking and overseeing CSR related activities in MP’s constituency. At CCS, Abhishek works on advocating for school choice with political leaders and government officials.

Akanksha Bapna, Sr Research Fellow

Akanksha has worked with the Haryana State Government Department of School Education to build capacity for evidence-based policy making. She has researched teachers' time utilization and various components of the Right to Education Act. Akanksha holds a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of Cambridge and a Masters' degree in International Education Policy from Harvard University. At CCS she will be focusing on primary studies and analysis of data from our projects.

Arvind Ilamaran, Associate, Research

Arvind is a native of Chennai, Tamilnadu. Graduated in Instrumentation and Control Engineering from National Institute of Technology-Tiruchirapalli in 2010. For more than two years he was employed with ONGC Petro-additions Limited in Gujarat. He is also a member of Freedom Team of India and Youth for Policy and Dialogue.

Bibhuti Bhardwaj, Coordinator, Field

Bibhuti manages field level research and coordination for the School Choice Campaign. He is a graduate of Delhi University and has a Master's in Political Science and Rural Development with over nine years of experience in research, training, education, livelihood & e-governance. He previously managed operations for the World Bank funded Multipurpose Household Survey - Smart card project for Government of Uttarakhand. He has coordinated various projects on education, health and livelihood funded by Aga Khan, CIF, OXFAM and NABARD.

Mehek Rastogi, Associate, Campaign

Mehek has her MA in Poverty and Development from IDS, University of Sussex. She has previously worked with the centre to promote liberal ideas through the Academy’s public policy programs. She is currently working on the NISA project to promote quality and access among budget private schools in India.  She is also working with the research team to better understand the challenges and successes of inclusive education under the section 12 of the RTE act.

Rahul Singh, Associate, Research

Rahul graduated from IIT Kanpur with a B.Tech degree in Bio-engineering in 2010. He has interned as a researcher at National Institute of Genetics, Japan and NCBS, Bangalore. He also worked as a consultant with a global IT Consultancy called ThoughtWorks for past two years. Recently after being part of the Jagriti Yatra 2012, he joined CCS as an Associate in Research. His interests lie in transforming the education system, by bringing in more disruptive methods in education.

Sanjukta Basu, Associate, Research

Sanjukta Basu is a graduate from Hansraj college, Delhi and post graduate from Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, Pune in Economics in 2013. Though she has spent her entire life in Delhi but is originally from a small town called Burdhman in West Bengal. She is working as a research associate in the school choice campaign at Centre for civil society.

Subhalakshmi D, Sr Manager, Advocacy

Subha has worked with GE/Genpact, a rural vocational training school and the Unique ID Authority of India in a mix of program management, process improvement, organisation & people development roles. She holds a PGDM from IIM Ahmedabad and is a certified Black Belt in the Six Sigma methodology. At CCS, she works on advocacy relating to Livelihoods and specifically manages the Skill Voucher pilot.

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