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Kumar V. Pratap

Kumar V. Pratap is Visiting Professor at NCAER. He is also Professor of Practice (Finance and Public Policy) at Shiv Nadar University, and Advisory Board Member, Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Lucknow. Earlier, he has worked as Deputy Secretary with the Prime Minister’s Office, as Joint Secretary, Infrastructure Policy and Finance with the Ministry of Finance, Government of India, and with the World Bank at Washington D.C.

He has written two books, PPPs in Infrastructure – Managing the Challenges [Springer, 2018] and Infrastructure Financing in India [Oxford University Press, 2024]. He has also published in various national dailies, including The Economic Times, Business Standard, and The Financial Express.

He was a Visiting Professor at the Indian School of Business (Hyderabad and Mohali). He has also lectured at University of Michigan, Ann Arbor; London School of Economics; Singapore Management University; Lee Kuan Yew School, Singapore; Duke University; University of Maryland, the World Bank; International Monetary Fund (IMF), SARTTAC; Indian Institutes of Management, Ahmedabad, Indore, Kozhikode, Lucknow, and Shillong; Management Development Institute, (MDI), Gurgaon; National Academy of Administration, Mussoorie; and National Institute of Public Finance and Policy (NIPFP), Delhi.

He has an MBA from IIM, Lucknow and a PhD from University of Maryland, College Park, USA.

Arunima Srivastava

Arunima Srivastava is a Research Associate in the States, Sectors, Surveys and Impact Evaluation team at NCAER. She graduated from Jesus and Mary College, Delhi University, and went on to work in the Public Policy & Regulatory vertical at Reliance Retail Limited. She also holds a master’s degree in economics from Lakshmibai College (IGNOU) and has previously interned at EGROW Foundation.

Nivedita Ojha

Nivedita Ojha is a Research Associate at the Centre for Gender and Macroeconomy (CGM) at the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER). She earned her Master’s degree in Economics from Shiv Nadar Institution of Eminence and her Bachelor’s degree in Economics from Doon University. Her research interests include development economics, international trade, gender economics, and political economy. Prior to joining NCAER, she worked as a Research Assistant at Shiv Nadar Institution of Eminence and at the Association for Environment and Development Research (AEDR). She has also served as a Teaching Assistant in undergraduate economics. Her master’s dissertation explored how demographic change influences international trade through the consumption channel.

Meghna Raj Saxena

Meghna Raj Saxena is a Research Associate at the National Data Innovation Centre (NDIC), NCAER. She holds a Master’s in Economics from Azim Premji University, Bengaluru, and a Bachelor’s in Economics (Honours) from St. Xavier’s College, Jaipur.

Her research interests lie at the intersection of gender, development economics, and macroeconomic policy. Her Master’s thesis, Defying Norms and Defining Autonomy, examined women’s agency and social norms across life stages among married women in India, using a mixed-methods approach combining NFHS-5 data with field research from Devgadh Baria, Gujarat.

She is skilled in qualitative fieldwork including interviews, participatory tools, surveys, and focus group discussions as well as geospatial analysis using QGIS and advanced statistics using R, STATA,and Python. She has experience working with datasets including NFHS, NCRB, CPHS, RBI, and IMF PortWatch.

Prior to NCAER, she worked as a Research Associate at XKDR Forum, Mumbai, where she evaluated state welfare schemes in Karnataka and Maharashtra using CPHS and DID methods, and tracked the rerouting of global maritime traffic using IMF PortWatch satellite data. Her work spanned across household finance, public finance, urban planning, health economics, and macroeconomy.

She has also interned with the National Foundation for India under the Abhijit Sen Rural Internship, conducting field research on Women’s Autonomy in Devgadh Baria: Role of Social Norms and Women Collectives and with the Budget Analysis and Research Centre Trust (BARC), Jaipur, where she analysed primary survey data from 17 districts in Rajasthan on gender roles in society and family in the post-COVID period, in collaboration with UNICEF.

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