Events of ADRI (Patna - Ranchi)
Workshop Speakers
Day I: July 7, 2024
INAUGURAL SESSION
Chief Guest
Dr. Santosh Kumar Suman is currently a Cabinet Minister of Information Technology & SC/ST Welfare in the Government of Bihar. He has also been a former Minister of Minor Irrigation in the Government of Bihar and is a member of the Bihar Legislative Council from the Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM) Party. He holds a PhD from Magadh University, Bodh Gaya. He completed his Post-Graduation from Delhi University.
Keynote Speaker
Prof. Rajeeva Laxman Karandikar is an Indian mathematician, statistician, and Psephologist. He is presently Chairperson, National Statistical Commission, Government of India, and has served as the Director of Chennai Mathematical Institute (CMI) from 2010 to 2021. Currently, he is Distinguished Faculty at CMI. Prof. Karandikar has made significant contributions to various areas of mathematical research, including Stochastic Calculus, Filtering Theory, Markov processes, Martingale problems, Limit theorems, Monte Carlo techniques, Queuing Theory, Game Theory, and Theory of Option Pricing. He has authored two books in association with Professor G Kallianpur: one on filtering theory and another one on option pricing. He, along with Prof B V Rao, has also written a book on Stochastic Calculus.
He is a Fellow of the Indian National Science Academy and Indian Academy of Sciences and has been awarded the Young Scientist’s Medal by the Indian National Science Academy in1985, the S S Bhatnagar Prize by the Council of Industrial and Scientific Research in 1999, and C R Rao National award in Statistics by Government of India in 2000.
Welcome Address
Professor Ajit Sinha joined ADRI as its Director on February 8, 2024. Professor Sinha studied Economics at Delhi School of Economics and has a Ph.D. from State University of New York at Buffalo. He started his career as lecturer of Economics at the University of Delhi in 1982, and went on to teach Economics at State University of New York at Buffalo, York University, Canada and The University of Newcastle, Australia. In 1999, he joined LBS National Academy of Administration, Mussoorie as Professor of Economics and Member, Academic Council for two years. Since then, he has been Professor (and also Director) at Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, Maître des Conférences Associé at Collège de France, Paris, Visiting Professor at Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research (IGIDR) in Mumbai, University of Paris 1 (Sorbonne), University of Trento, Italy; Professor at Azim Premji University in Bangalore and the founding Chair, Research and Faculty Recruitment at the Thapar School of Liberal Arts and Sciences in Patiala. He has also been Visiting Fellow at the Delhi School of Economics, JNU, Bombay University and Visiting Scholar at Faculty of Economics and Politics, University of Cambridge, UK. He has also served as a member of several committees of Indian Council for Social Science Research (ICSSR). Professor Sinha has authored three books and edited/co-edited 4 volumes along with more than 60 research papers in leading international journals, edited books and encyclopaedias.
Introduction and Context Setting
Dr. Ashmita Gupta is the Member-Secretary of Asian Development Research Institute (ADRI). Her primary areas of interest are empirical micro-economics, labor, development, gender, public finance, and international trade. She has been a post-doctoral researcher at Wageningen University in the Netherlands, and the Indian Statistical Institute in Chennai. She has been a Consultant Editor of the Economic and Political Weekly (EPW). She completed her PhD from the University of Houston, USA. Her PhD advisor, Prof. Chunhui Juhn, is an eminent labor economist and was also a member of the Council of Economic Advisors to President Barrack Obama. Her PhD Advisory Committee included Prof. Aimee Chin, who has worked closely with Nobel Laureates Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo. She has done her Master’s from Jawaharlal Nehru University and possesses a Bachelor’s degree from Delhi University.
TECHNICAL SESSION - I
Marrying Economic Experiments with Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning: An Analysis of Human Sentiment
Chair
Dr. Sunita Krishnan is a Deputy Director at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s India Country Office. Her major responsibilities include strategy, financial planning, business operations, measurement, learning, and evaluation for the Foundation’s India Country Office. She is widely experienced in the health and human development sector. Her research has examined the pathways through which poverty, gender and other inequities lead to adverse health outcomes such as unintended pregnancies, HIV/AIDS, and non-communicable diseases among women. She has also advocated for policy change and implementation at the city, state and national levels, and developed and tested interventions in individuals, families, communities and primary care systems to advance gender and health equity.
Speaker
Dr. Ritwik Banerjee is currently an Associate Professor of Economics at the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore. His primary research area lies at the intersection between Behavioural and Development Economics and he extensively uses experimental methods for his research. He has received numerous awards and fellowships, such as the Humboldt Fellowship for Experienced Researcher in 2022; the WBI-World Excellence Fellowship also in 2022; and the MJ Manohar Rao Award by The Indian Econometric Society (TIES) in 2017
TECHNICAL SESSION - II
Data Quality and Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning: Demystifying the Conundrum
Chair
Dr. Sanjay Pandey is a Professor and Head of the Department of Community & Family Medicine at AIIMS, Patna. His major works include Supportive supervision for strengthening routine immunization in Bihar and Co-investigator for Covaxin - India's first indigenous COVID-19 vaccine trial. His research has been on topics like validation of the life- space assessment scale among community-dwelling older adults, awareness and attitude towards tobacco products and the tobacco industry, and perception of the government’s role in tobacco control amongst the adult rural population, open defecation among adults possessing household toilets and factors associated with it, household-level food insecurity and its correlates in rural Bihar, etc.
Speakers
Gautam Patel is presently the Deputy Director of the Centre for Social Behaviour and Change at Ashoka University. He has been associated with governments for many years (most recently with J-PAL South Asia), where he has led partnerships with several state governments for using evidence to inform policy and to support scale-ups in government systems. He has also worked for the Chief Minister's Office in Gujarat and Rajasthan. Before settling in India, he used to work for the UK government in the field of educational reform for 14-19 year olds in Oxfordshire. He also served as a trained youth worker at a youth club in the evenings. He graduated from the London School of Economics and Political Science in 2007 with a Master's in Development Management and a concentration in India's development, history, and politics.
Dr. Malay Bharat Shah is an Associate Director - MEL, Health Programs and Gender at Wadhwani Institute for Artificial Intelligence. He happens to be a medical doctor with an MD in Preventive and Social Medicine. As a cross- cutting public health professional, he has worked since 2010 for diverse geographies of India in areas like quality improvement, maternal/newborn/child care, Tuberculosis, HIV-AIDS, etc. He has contributed to multiple facets of public health, including large-scale implementation & measurement, system strengthening, advocacy, planning, strategy, capacity building, and data-driven management for multiple stake-holders in multi-million dollar projects.
Dr Sandip Mukopadhyay is presently working as Scientist E (Medical) at ICMR-NICED (Indian Council of Medical Research’s National Institute of Cholera & Enteric Diseases), which is a part of the National Institute for Research in Bacterial Infections (NIRBI) in Kolkata. Having worked in different capacities of medical education at North Bengal Medical College, Siliguri; Burdwan Medical College, Burdwan; and Medical College, Kolkata, he brings clinical and research experience along with that of medical teaching in Surgery, Anaesthesiology & Critical care, and Pharmacology of more than 22 years prior to joining ICMR. He has received 8 international accolades for research from different parts of the world. One such prize was the Young Investigator (Young Scientist) award in Washington DC, USA from the Multi-national Association of Supportive Care in Cancer (MASCC). Declared as the first-ever 'MASCC Ambassador for India' in 2017-18, and again in 2019, he is also the first Indian to be designated as Vice-Chair in the Palliative Care Study Group of MASCC.
Dr. Tanmay Mahapatra is an epidemiologist, physician and public health expert with over two decades of experience in research, measurement, implementations and innovations in Epidemiology; managing intervention programs; analysing research data; developing research leadership and partnership along with training experts on methodology & analyses. He is currently the Director of Data and Learning at Piramal Swasthya Management & Research Institute in Patna.
TECHNICAL SESSION - III
Challenges of Data-centrism
Chair
Dr. Nalin Bharti is a Professor of Economics at IIT, Patna. His research areas consist of trade, investment and macro-economic reforms. His professional experience comprises working for the 12th Finance Commission, Government of India; Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FICCI); NALSAR University of Law; Intellectual Property Education & Research Max-Planck Institute, NALSAR and World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO); Public Economies in South Asia, at National Institute of Public Finance and Policy, New Delhi; and Knowledge Community on Children in India (KCCI), UNICEF. He is a member of the American Economic Association as well as the Indian Society of Labour Economics. Recently, Professor Nalin Bharti was appointed as IPR Chair Professor by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry of the Government of India on an additional charge basis at the Indian Institute of Technology Patna.
Speaker
Dr. Debabrota Basu is an Associate Professor at Inria, University of Lille, France. His research aims to construct algorithms and systems for developing efficient, robust, private, and ethical learning machines that can solve real life problems. His work bridges techniques of statistics, optimization, and geometry with modern computing techniques and AI regulation. He has been a post-doctoral researcher at Data Science and AI division of Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden. He obtained his PhD in Computer Science from School of Computing of National University of Singapore, and ENS Paris. He is a member of the prestigious ELLIS Society (European Laboratory for Learning and Intelligent Systems), and also a recipient of French National Research Agency's young researcher award.
Day II: July 8, 2024
TECHNICAL SESSION - IV
Computational Challenges of Analysing Big Data: Role of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning
Chair
Dr. Syed R Hassan is a Professor of Theoretical Physics at the Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai in Tamil Nadu, India. His research domain includes Orbital-selective Mott transition out of band degeneracy lifting; interaction-induced adiabatic cooling and anti-ferromagnetism of cold fermions in optical lattices; slave spins away from half-filling: cluster mean-field theory of the Hubbard and extended Hubbard models, etc.
Speakers
Dr. Arijit Ghosh is an Assistant Professor at the Advanced Computing and Micro-electronics Unit (ACMU) of the Computer and Communication Sciences Division (CCSD) at the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI) in Kolkata, India. He finished his PhD in Computer Science in 2012 from INRIA, Sophia Antipolis –Méditerranée in France. He received a dual degree (B.Tech and M.Tech) in Computer Science in June, 2008 from the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur. His research interests are in theoretical Computer Science and Combinatorics. He is currently looking into the following topics: - (1) Discrete and Computational Geometry and Topology; (2) Applied Probability Theory; (3) Optimization Problems in Geometry and Graph Theory.
Debarshi Chanda is a research scholar at the Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata. He holds an M.Tech degree in Computer Science from the Indian Statistical Institute at Kolkata, and a Bachelor of Engineering degree from Jadavpur University. He is currently working on sublinear algorithms.
Mr. Manmatha Roy is an Associate Scientist in the Computer and Statistical Services Centre at Indian Statistical Institute (ISI) in Kolkata. Mr. Roy is also pursuing his PhD at ISI, Kolkata. He holds a M. Tech degree in Computer Science from ISI, Kolkata. His research work is on Highly Non- Linear Boolean Functions.
Prof. Sourav Chakraborty is currently a Professor at the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI), Kolkata, India. Before joining ISI, he was a faculty member at the Chennai Mathematical Institute, India. He successfully defended his PhD in Computer Science from the University of Chicago. His field of research is Theoretical Computer Science. Prof. Chakraborty’s focus has been in the classical and quantum complexity of Boolean functions (including property testing, sensitivity and block sensitivity of Boolean functions and quantum database search), electronic commerce, graph algorithms, and coding theory. His work got international acclaim recently when he, along with his co-authors, managed to write the CVM algorithm. This is a significant step towards solving what is called the distinct elements problem- something which computer scientists have grappled with for more than 40 years.
TECHNICAL SESSION - V
Ensuring Data Quality, Access, and Trust
Chair
Shri Tripurari Sharan is the State Chief Information Commissioner of Bihar. He is a 1985-batch IAS officer of the Bihar cadre. He has served as Secretary and Additional Secretary in the Department of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, Food and Civil Supplies apart from being the Managing-Director of Bihar State Finance Corporation. He was also the Director of the Film and Television Institute, Pune and the Chairman of the Revenue Council. He has directed two feature films and written a novel titled ‘Madhopur Ka Ghar’.
Speaker
Dr. M R Sharan is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at the University of Maryland, College Park, USA. His research interests centre on questions in development economics and political economy. He has worked as a researcher and policy economist for different research organizations, state governments, and the central government of India. Research topics like inequality in socially-diverse settings and how institutional and technological innovations could empower marginalized groups have been his pursuits. As far as India is concerned, he has majorly focused on investigating rural local government institutions.
TECHNICAL SESSION - VI
Panel Discussion: Facets of Data Collection from the Field
Moderator
Panelist
Allen Francis is a Research Manager at DAI Research and Advisory Services. He has been involved in multiple projects and works closely with the founders of business and organizational development. Allen has over 9 years of experience in research, international development and social start-ups. He has been a trail-blazer in taking initiatives for sustainable agriculture and promoting sustainable consumption. He has been a German Chancellor Fellow working on attitudes and behavioural motivations for sustainable consumption.
Anup Bhagat works as a Program Manager at the Centre for Health and Policy (CHP) of ADRI. He is a data-driven professional with more than 12 years of experience in improving public health initiatives. His major works are related to data quality, monitoring, project co-ordination, and health information systems.
Chanchal Kumar Singh is a Director at C. K. Singh Management Services Private Limited. He is a specialist in survey design and data collection. Having worked on multiple projects at ADRI, he has also done projects for Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), International Growth Centre (IGC),Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Boston University (BU), American University (AU), University of Pennsylvania (UPenn), Columbia University (CU), University of California (UC-Berkeley), University of Maryland (UMD), University of Chicago, National University of Singapore (NUS), Indian School of Business (ISB), and Infrastructure Development Finance Company (IDFC).
Deepak Kumar is a dedicated Field Manager at C. K. Singh Management Services Pvt. Ltd. Possessing a strong foundation in the domain of field work and backed by a graduation degree, he oversees field operations and manages field resources.
Gulshan is working as a Project Assistant for the on-going project titled ‘Climate Resilient and Low Carbon Development Pathway’ underway at CSEC, ADRI. His major involvement is in inter-disciplinary research project co-ordination, assisting in field-based investigations and also participating in data analysis and literature reviews for the same. He is also associated with project monitoring and evaluation in the field for effective implementation. He holds a Master’s Degree in Environmental Science from the Central University of South Bihar, Gaya.
Mr. Indrajit Goswami is currently working as a Project Officer in Ayushman Bharat-Pradhan Mantri Jan Aarogya Yojana (AB-PMJAY), which is being undertaken by the Centre for Health Policy (CHP) at ADRI, Patna. He has been associated with the Asian Development Research Institute (ADRI), Patna as a Programme Co-ordinator since October, 1996, where he held different positions in the State Resource Centre (SRC) and ADRI Institute His role has been that of a resource person working on Environment Building/Social Mobilization Training, Pedagogical Training, Monitoring, Capacity Building, & Evaluation and development of IEC materials, Audio-Visual materials, Radio Jingle, Sports & Serials, Training/Teaching materials, etc. and in many different sectors like education, health, folk art-culture, financial inclusion & micro-finance etc. He has been extensively engaged in literacy campaign/programmes & Inter-personal Media Campaign of the National Literacy Mission Authority, Ministry of HRD, Government of India right from village to district level in Bihar state.
TECHNICAL SESSION - VII
A Multidisciplinary View of Responsible Data-Centrism
Chair
Dr. Ravi Shankar Singh is currently a Medical Director at Jay Prabha Medanta Super-Speciality Hospital. He completed his speciality studies with the Hospital Management Program at Singapore Management University in 2010. He has also been a member of the Cancer Awareness Society since 2013.
Speakers
Arnab Mitra is a Data Protection Officer and Corporate Legal Expert. He is a strategic, decisive, and result-oriented lawyer with over 17 years of extensive experience in steering legal, regulatory, and compliance affairs. He has consistently provided top-tier legal solutions for a spectrum of complex scenarios. His expertise extends to trust and company incorporation, managing statutory and regulatory compliances, and executing corporate secretarial work across multiple sectors and jurisdictions.
Dr. Deepak Kumar is a Public Policy and Governance Researcher at the Asian Development Research Institute. He works on different projects under the supervision of ADRI’s Member-Secretary. He has an MPhil and PhD in Law and Governance from the Centre for the Study of Law and Governance at Jawaharlal Nehru University. His areas of research interest are urban governance, human rights, and exploring the state-citizen relationship.
Sanchita Mahapatra is a Subject Expert Epidemiologist in the Centre for Health Policy (CHP) at Asian Development Research Institute (ADRI). She is a Medical Doctor and Epidemiologist. Dr Mahapatra received her PhD in Epidemiology from the Fielding School of Public Health, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in the USA. She has over 20 years of experience in Public Health and Epidemiology with expertise in disease surveillance/control, and adolescent, reproductive, maternal and child health.