Sanjay Srivastava is the British Academy Global Professor at SOAS, University of London. His research interests consist of urban cultures, consumerism, middle-class cultures and ethnographies of the state. Some of his key publications are “Constructing Post-colonial India: National Character and the Doon School” (Routledge, 1998); “Passionate Modernity: Sexuality, Class and Consumption in India” (Routledge, 2007); “Entangled Urbanism: Slum, Gated Community and Shopping Mall in Delhi and Gurgaon” (OUP, 2015); and “Masculinity and the Post-National City: Streets, Neighbourhoods, Home and Consumerism” (Cambridge University Press, 2022). Previously employed at the Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi University, he has also been the Co-editor for the journal “Contributions to Indian Sociology” between 2002 and 2016. His current assignment explores new land markets in Gurgaon and the relationships they produce between the state, private capital and newly-enriched rural land-sellers. He has earlier played an active role in the making of ethnographic films like “Doon School Chronicles” and “Kotla Walks: Performing Locality”.

Partha Sen obtained his PhD from the London School of Economics in 1984. He taught at the Delhi School of Economics as a Professor from 1996 to 2011 and as a Reader in Economics between 1990 and 1996. He held the position of the Director of Delhi School of Economics from 2008 to 2011. He has also held full-time appointments at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA; the London School of Economics; and the University of Bristol apart from appointments as visiting faculty at University of Michigan; Hitotsubashi University; ISER, Osaka; HKUST; NUS; NTU; the City University, Hong Kong, among others. His research papers have been published in journals like the International Economic Review, Journal of Public Economics, Journal of International Economics, and the Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control. He edited the Indian Economic Review from 1997 to 2007. His areas of interest are macro-economics, international economics and environmental economics. He has featured on the National Public Radio (USA), Swedish National Radio, CNBC (Singapore), Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Rajya Sabha TV, etc. He is a member of the CESifo, Munich research network apart from being a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research.

Paramita Dey is a city planner by profession with over 25 years of experience in urban development. She heads the Resources and Waste Unit as well as being the program lead for the Sustainable Cities and Water and Sanitation program at NIUA. She has been spearheading the programme on “Capacity Building in Sanitation and Waste Management” as part of the Swachh Bharat Mission 1.0 (Urban) of the government of India. Striving to bridge the gap between infrastructure policy and practice through the South Asia Urban Knowledge Hub, she has also helped create innovation labs on Urban WASH solutions in Indian cities. Paramita has been associated with several Ministries in India along with internationally-funded projects of UNIDO, ADB, UNDP, CIDA, USAID, World Bank and with leading think tanks like the Centre for Policy Research (CPR) and the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE). Paramita has spoken cogently at events like the U-20, BRICS Summit, Global Solutions Summit, International Circular Economy Forum, etc. Many of her research-based studies have been published as working papers. She has written extensively on issues related to Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH); the circular economy; urban poverty reduction; land tenure; urban environment, etc.

Dr Sudakshina Gupta is presently a Professor in the Department of Economics and Director of the Centre for Urban Economic Studies at the University of Calcutta, India. She got her Doctorate degree from Jadavpur University and teaches Economic Theory, Indian Economic Problems and Urban Planning at the post-graduate and M. Phil levels. She is also the Chairperson of UGBoS, Economics and Women's Studies. She conducts research on issues like Transport Economics, Ancient Indian Agriculture, Environment, Women’s issues, Education, etc. at the PhD and other levels. Her academic career of teaching Economics and related subjects at undergraduate and post-graduate levels spans nearly 26 years. She has published some 97 papers in English in national and international journals. Moreover, she has many articles in books, magazines and conference volumes to her credit with more than 62 written in Bengali.

Vivekananda Mukherjee holds the position of Professor of Economics at BITS (Pilani) in Hyderabad. He received his PhD from Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India. Also, he has served as a Research Fellow at the Planning Unit, Indian Statistical Institute, New Delhi. Before joining BITS Pilani, he taught at Jadavpur University; University of Burdwan; and RKM Residential College, Narendrapur in Kolkata. Dr Mukherjee has been a Post-Doctoral Fellow at INRA, France and Katholik University, Leuven, Belgium apart from being on visiting fellowship at the University of Gothenburg, INRA, Technical University of Freiberg, and Monash University. He has also taught at Centre for Studies in Social Science, Kolkata; Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, Kolkata, University of Gour Banga in West Bengal; and Centre for Urban Economic Studies, University of Calcutta as a visiting Professor. He is also Associate Editor of the South Asian Journal of Macro-economics and Public Finance.

Siddhartha Mitra is currently Professor of Economics at Jadavpur University, Kolkata. His previous designations have been Director (Research), CUTS International and Reader at the Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, Pune. Prof. Mitra has also taught at the University.of Melbourne, and Indian Statistical Institute, New Delhi. His research interests lie in the field of development economics, environmental economics, agricultural economics, political economy and economics of peace. He has been a prolific researcher with around 40 publications in national and international journals to his credit. He has been on consultative committees for the Ministry of Environment, Government of India. Prof. Mitra was a Consultant to the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER), New Delhi and Center for Development Research (ZEF), Bonn in Germany. He successfully defended his Ph.D. and M.S. degrees at the Department of Agriculture and Resource Economics of the University of Maryland at College Park, USA.

E. Somanathan holds the designation of Professor in the Economics and Planning Unit of the Indian Statistical Institute in Delhi and Head, Centre for Research on Economics of Climate, Food, Energy and Environment (CECFEE). He is the Centre Director of EfD India. He was recently a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford. His research is in the economics of environment and development. After receiving his PhD from Harvard University, he taught at Emory University, the University of Michigan, and Princeton University. He founded the Center for Research in the Economics of Climate, Food, Energy, and Environment (CECFEE) at the Indian Statistical Institute. Moreover, his other roles have been as the Executive Director of SANDEE (South Asian Network for Development and Environmental Economics), a co-ordinating Lead Author for the Fifth Assessment Report of the IPCC, and as a Co-Editor of the journal titled “Environment and Development Economics”.

Debojyoti Lahiri has been teaching Economics at Sovarani Memorial College, Howrah since 2016 apart from pursuing his PhD from the Department of Economics, University of Calcutta. He completed his M.Sc. in Economics from the University of Calcutta. His major research area is Transport Economics. He has been teaching a wide array of topics such as Microeconomics, Mathematical Economics, Statistical Economics, Econometrics, International Economics, Environmental Economics, Development Economics, and the Indian Economy.

Chakraborty Sweeyam Chakraborty is a PhD Research Scholar at the Department of Economics, University of Calcutta. He is presently employed as a Research Fellow at The Centre for Urban Economic Studies, University of Calcutta. His research interests consist of issues in electric mobility, sustainable transport and urban economics. He has previously been Visiting Faculty of Economics at several institutions in Kolkata, viz., City College, Sammilani Mahavidyalaya, The Neotia University, and EIILM over a span of four years.

Upasana Bhattacharya is a Research Associate at the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, Kolkata as well as a PhD scholar at the University of Calcutta. Having developed a strong background in Economics, she specializes in Transport Economics and Green Mobility. Upasana has contributed to various research projects, including India's G20 Presidency, and has published several works on electric vehicles, COVID-19 impacts, and rural employment.

Kanak Tiwari possesses a rich experience of 20 years in the urban sector. Presently engaged with the National Institute of Urban Affairs, she is one of the honchos of the Urban Strategy Unit, a multi-project unit aimed at driving urban transformations in India, as its Programme Director. She has also been a key player for the Master Plan of Delhi, 2041 and the Child Friendly Cities initiative at NIUA in the past. Kanak specializes in urban design, and urban planning and policy. Also, she has had stints with the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, several state and city governments as well as international agencies and think tanks such as the World Bank, ICRIER, PRIA, CSH, and INTACH, among others. She has also taught at SPA, New Delhi and Jamia Millia Islamia as Visiting Faculty over a period of approximately 10 years.

Khushboo Taneja is an Associate Sr. Landscape Architect employed with Oasis Designs, Inc. She is a graduate of MBS School of Planning and Architecture, I.P University, and possesses a Master’s degree in Landscape Architecture from the School of Planning and Architecture, Bhopal. She has been working for this firm since December, 2020, where she has been involved in landscape projects dealing with streetscaping, housing and township at various stages of deliverables and co-ordination.

Nishant Lall is an urban designer/architect, having attended the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He has been practicing for more than two decades while commissioning many award-winning urban projects. He has served on many expert committees dealing with architecture and urbanism in India like Transit-Oriented Development Policy (TOD) and President’s Estate Urban Design. Apart from being on a mission to reframe the dialogue on cities in India, his key interests lie in urban ecological initiatives, reusing urban voids to create public spaces which would lead to a more vibrant and healthy city. Earlier, in the USA, he has distinguished himself in key projects like UPenn Vision 2030, Cambridge North-Point Plan adjacent to MIT, and Beijing 798 Cultural District Plan. Nishant also founded the New Delhi-based design practice called NilaA in 2010. This studio focuses on the integration of urban design, landscape and architectural implementation. He was actively engaged in a World Bank scheme for the urban revitalization of the Ganges Waterfront in Patna by means of a series of public spaces such as parks and art terraces. Apart from having taught at Boston Architectural College (BAC), Mr. Lall is currently visiting faculty in the Department of Urban Design at SPA, New Delhi. His research interests lie in envisioning solutions for evolving urban conditions as a result of climate change in cities.

Partha Ranjan Das has been an active architecture professional for more than 25 years. He is an active member of the Academic Council of SPA, New Delhi along with West Bengal Heritage Commission. Mr. Das is also Principal Consultant to West Bengal Housing Infrastructure Development Corporation Ltd. and an advisor to NIASA. Partha Ranjan Das has been bedecked with numerous awards in his long architectural career. Some of these accolades are Special Prize in Housing Design Competition by HUDCO in 1987; prizes in all categories of Housing Design Competition by Jaipur Dev. Authority in 1989; IIA Dharmasthala award, 1994; Certificate of Merit from J.K. Cement’s Architect of the Year Award, 1994; Honourable Mention, Redevelopment of Crawford Market Design Competition, Bombay, 1995; Honourable Mention, International Housing Design Competition in Shanghai in 1996, etc. He was also an illustrator for the Satyajit Ray magazine “Sandesh” in 1984.

Dr Rutul Joshi is Sr. Associate Professor at the Faculty of Planning, CEPT University and also heads the Doctoral Office of the University. He works on transit-oriented development, sustainable mobility, and approaches to reform urban planning. Rutul’s current research focuses on planning low-emission zones, parking policies, and TOD-based retrofits for East African cities. Rutul also features occasionally in the newspapers and other media where he opines on urban mobility and civic issues.

Annanya holds the position of Senior Research Associate at Sustainable Futures Collaborative. Her research focuses on understanding the health and economic impacts of air pollution as well as studying how environmental governance can be improved. Her broader research interests have been on decentralised environmental governance and sustainable development. She has a Master’s degree in Specialized Economic Analysis from the Barcelona School of Economics. Ms. Mahajan has worked previously at the Centre for Policy Research where she focused on studying the capacity of environmental regulators. She was also employed at the Inclusion Economics India Centre, where she researched on broader development topics like local climate adaptation; capacity building and the governance of employment, health and nutrition schemes.

Suresh Pandian Elumalal is an Associate Professor in the Department of Environmental Science & Engineering at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT-ISM), Dhanbad in Jharkhand. His PhD degree is in Environmental Engineering from IIT (Guwahati), Assam, India. He is a life member of the Mining, Geological and Metallurgical Institute of India; Indian Water Works Association (IWWA); Indian Institute of Chemical Engineers (IIChE); American Chemical Society (ACS), Columbus, Ohio, USA. His research interests have been on air pollution, and vehicular emissions inventory and dispersion modelling. Some of his major published works include evaluating effects of traffic and vehicle characteristics on vehicular emissions near traffic intersections, dependence of urban air pollutants on morning/evening peak hours and seasons, characterization of hazardous solid waste (soot) accumulated in tailpipes of typical Indian shared autos, etc.

Karkun Arunesh Karkun is a Senior Research Associate at Sustainable Futures Collaborative in New Delhi. His work primarily involves researching air quality governance, specifically focussing on analysing the regulatory and policy aspects of air quality management. Mr. Karkun has been delving into issues pertaining to electrical mobility and climate policy. He holds an M.Sc. degree in Climate Change and Sustainability Studies from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai.

Bandana Preyashi (IAS, 2003; Bihar Cadre) is currently working as Secretary in the Department of Environment, Forests and Climate Change, Government of Bihar. She has been at the forefront of conceptualizing, developing and executing policies and programmes for conservation of the state’s natural resources, tackling climate change issues and striving to achieve sustainable development in the state. Possessing an experience of more than two decades, Ms. Preyashi is a bureaucrat gifted with vision. From empowering communities at the grassroot level as District Magistrate to shaping policies at the national level, she has left an indelible mark on India's governance landscape. She has many feathers in her cap, having held portfolios in the departments of Urban Development; Finance; Women & Child Development; Co-operatives; and Art, Culture & Youth.