Dr. A. K. Singh

Vice Chancellor, Auro University, Surat

Dr. Avadhesh Kumar Singh is a Hon’ble Vice Chancellor, Auro University, Surat. He has been Professor since 1993, and was Vice Chancellor, Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Open University, Ahmedabad (2006–2009). Thereafter, he was Convener, Gujarat State Quality Assurance Cell, and Founder Convener, Knowledge Consortium of Gujarat, Government of Gujarat, Gandhinagar (Gujarat). Also, he was Founder Head, Department of English & Comparative Literary Studies, Saurashtra University, Rajkot (Gujarat) 1989 to 2005.

He has been Professor and Director, School of Translation Studies & Training, Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) New Delhi. Also, he was Director, Indian Sign Language, Research & Training Centre, MoS J&E. Also he is Adjunct Professor of Humanities, Mata Vaishnava Devi University, Katra (J & K).

Since 1994, he has been Editor, Critical Practice, a biannual journal of literary and critical studies whose 28 volumes are out. Also he is a General Editor of the 14 volume series ‘Critical Discourses in South Asia’, Routledge, Taylor & Francis. He contributes articles to newspapers/magazines like Jansatta, DNA, Ajkal, Vagarth and Samkalin Bharatiya Sahitya.

Apart from being the British Council Visiting Fellow to Corpus Christi College, Oxford (UK) in 1997, he has lectured in many Universities in Europe. He has delivered more than 175 Keynote and Plenary Addresses to various national and international seminars. Moreover, he has delivered many distinguished lectures including Purohit Swami Memorial Lecture, 2003 (Benaras Hindu University, Varanasi), Mohan Lal Lecture, 2006 (North Gujarat University), H M Patel Memorial Lecture, 2011 (S P University) and Professor G C Banerjee Memorial Lecture, 2010 (Bombay University, Bombay), Gujarati Sahitya Parishad Lecture, 2012, and CEPT University Paraspar Lecture, 2011 and EYES Series Lecture on Humanities 2014 (Bombay University) among others. He was the Head of the Indian delegation to Sino-Indian Cultural Exchange Programme (2015) and delivered the Key Note Speech in Beijing International Book Fair 2015, Kieler Wohr Lecture, Christian Albert University, Kiel (Germany) 2016 and Professor K S Swaminathan Memorial Lecture, Dr H S Gaur Central University, Sagar (MP).

His areas of research interests include comparative and interdisciplinary studies, comparative poetics, comparative literary and critical theories and translation studies. He has published more than 180 papers in various anthologies, national and international journals of repute. He has authored 17 books till now. Some of his books include Indian Knowledge Systems 2 Vols. (with Kapil Kapoor) (2005), Ramayana through Ages (2007), Voices of Woman: Gargi to Gangasati (2008), Interventions: Critical and Literary Discourses (2009), Towards Interdisciplinary: (the) University, Social Sciences and Humanities (2010), and Revisiting Literature, Criticism and Aesthetics in India (2012), Samkalin Alochana Vimarsh (2016), Sanskrit Alochana ki Bhoomika (2017), Valmiki’s Ramayana: Voices and Visions (2017) and Dr Syama Prasad Mukherjee: His Vision of Education (2017) with Anirban Ganguli.

Prof. Pragnesh Shah

Prof. & Head, Department of Accounting and Financial Management,

The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, Vadodara.

Prof. Pragnesh Shah is the Head, Department of Accounting and Financial Management, The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda. He is an academician and administrator extraordinaire with more than twenty-five years of experience in postgraduate, undergraduate teaching and research. At present he is also the Chairman, Board of Studies, Accounting and Financial Management, Associate Program Director - P.G. Diploma in Taxation Practice and Assistant Coordinator, Associate Program Director - P.G. Diploma in Financial Management, IGNO University Study Centre, M.S.U., Baroda. Besides holding key positions in the university in various capacities he is a distinguished author with books on Accounting and his latest path breaking book- Unpathed Waters Undreamed Shores.

He has guided and produced two Ph.D scholars and at present seven scholars are pursuing Ph.D under his able guidance. He has given numerous invited talks and tutorials, Key note addresses and chaired sessions in various international and national seminars and conferences. In addition, he has made numerous innovative contributions in curriculum designing and implementation. He received his M Phil in 1995 and Ph.D. in “Human Resource Accounting: An Empirical Study of Selected Public and Private Sector Organisations of India” in 2006.

Dr. Krishnan Narayanan

Prof. Department of Humanities & Social Sciences, IIT Bombay, Mumbai.

Dr. Krishnan Narayanan obtained his Ph.D in Economics from the Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi, India, and carried out Post-doctoral research at Institute of Advanced Studies United Nations University, Tokyo, Japan during 2000-01. For the research studies in India, he was a recipient of the ICSSR fellowship at the Institute of Economic Growth. His research interests span the areas of industrial economics, international business, Socio-economic empowerment through ICT, Environmental Economics, Economic impacts of Climate Change and Development Economics. He has a number of publications in the field of industrial competitiveness, technology transfer, ICT, international trade and socio-economic impacts of Climate Change. The research journals in which he has published include Research Policy, Journal of Regional Studies, Technovation, Oxford Development Studies, Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade, International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy, Water Policy, Foreign Trade Review, Current Sciences, and Economic and Political Weekly.

Few of his recent publications includes edited books on (i) Indian and Chinese Enterprises: Global Trade, Technology, and Investment Regimes, (ii) Human Capital and Development: The Indian Experience, (iii) Innovation and Global Competitiveness: Case of India’s Manufacturing Sector, (iv) Technology: Corporate and Social Dimensions, and (v) Globalisation of Technology [all of them were jointly edited with N.S. Siddharthan] published by Routledge & Springer. His sixth book published recently by Springer titled “Globalisation of Indian Industries: Productivity, Exports and Investment” was edited jointly with Filip De Beule of KU Leuven, Belgium. He also guest edited a Special Issue of the IASSI Quarterly on the theme “Human Capital and Development”, a Special Issue of the Sage published international journal, Science, Technology and Society on the theme “Agglomeration, technology clusters and networks”, and a Special Issue of “Innovation and Development”, published by Taylor and Francis. He is actively engaged in a web based research group, Forum for Global Knowledge Sharing, which interfaces Scientists, Technologists and Economists. He is also a member of the study team that helps prepare India’s National Communication to the UNFCCC.

His teaching and research career span a period of 29 years – 1989 to 2001 at the University of Delhi and since December 2001 at Indian Institute of Technology Bombay. He has been teaching courses at both the Undergraduate as well as the Postgraduate levels. So far, 17 Scholars have completed their Ph.D under his guidance and 18 Scholars have prepared their MPhil dissertation under his supervision.

Dr. Narayanan is currently Professor at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai, India.