Sashank Rajaram is a Research Associate in the Centre for Economic Growth (CEG) at NCAER.
His research interests lie in Indian macroeconomics, growth diagnostics, and productivity, with a focus on applied econometrics, causal inference, and time-series forecasting and nowcasting. His other research has spanned structural-break modelling of geopolitical risk transmission across Indian sectors, forecasting EU energy prices, and the macroeconomic effects of climate shocks on food inflation.
He holds a Master’s degree in Economics from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), and a Bachelor’s degree in Economics and Finance from Ashoka University. He is proficient in Stata, R, Python, and EViews.
Parth Maniktala is a Fellow at the Centre for AI, DPI, and Digital Futures (CADF) at NCAER. He is a lawyer and researcher whose work focuses on the responsible adoption and governance of AI in the public sector. His recent research and writing explore guardrails for frontier AI and the governance of AI hallucinations in judicial decision-making.
Previously, he served as Chief Legal Officer at Adalat AI, a justice-tech non-profit developing AI tools for courts. In this role, he helped design governance, assurance, and data protection frameworks for AI systems deployed across more than 5,000 courtrooms in India. He has also practised as an Advocate before the Supreme Court of India and taught at Jindal Global Law School, where he served as Assistant Dean (Research) and Lecturer.
Parth holds an LL.M. from Harvard Law School, along with an LL.B. and a BA (Hons.) in English Literature from the University of Delhi.
Manali Sovani is an Associate Fellow at NCAER’s Centre for Economic Growth, working at the intersection of firm growth, labour productivity, and urban development.
She has over five years of research and policy experience spanning academia, international organisations, and industry. Before joining NCAER, she was a Research Associate at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), where she worked on labour and gender economics questions using administrative and survey data across Sub-Saharan Africa. She has worked in the private sector at Amazon in New York, applying causal inference and machine learning methods; and contributed to field experiments in India at the Fletcher School, Tufts University. She taught “Introduction to Development Economics” at Tufts University to both undergraduate and graduate students.
Her research examines how infrastructure, policy, and climate shocks shape labour market and educational outcomes with a particular focus on gender. Her work establishes a causal link between Delhi Metro access and women’s college attainment, evaluates India’s No Detention Policy, and studies gendered responses to extreme heat in Nigeria.
She holds a PhD in Economics and Public Policy from Tufts University, USA.
Bhumika Madnani is a Team Assistant in the Centre for Health Economics at NCAER. She provides administrative, secretarial, and operational support to the Centre’s research team and assists in the coordination of its research activities and strategic project goals. She has 13 years of professional experience in administration and secretarial roles, with expertise in executive support, project coordination, stakeholder liaison, and office administration.
She holds a Master’s degree in Public Administration from Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) and a Post-graduate Diploma in Advertising and Marketing from YMCA.
Pramod Kumar is working as a Team Assistant with the Human Development and Data Innovation vertical at NCAER
