Ms. Anuradha Thakur, a senior Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer of the 1994 batch from the Himachal Pradesh cadre, brings over three decades of administrative expertise in economic affairs, corporate governance, and financial regulation. She is currently the Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs and serves as an ex-officio member of both the Reserve Bank of India and the Securities and Exchange Board of India in this capacity.
Her career spans diverse leadership roles across the Government of India. As Additional Secretary in the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, she oversaw corporate governance and regulatory frameworks. She led large corporate fraud investigations during her tenure as Director of the Serious Fraud Investigation Office. As Joint Secretary at the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management, she spearheaded strategic disinvestment initiatives, including the privatization of Air India, and played a pivotal role in launching Bharat Bond ETFs. Internationally, she served as Adviser to the Executive Director at the World Bank, Washington D.C.
Ms. Thakur holds a Post-Graduate degree in Psychology. She has further enhanced her expertise through specialized training in Development Economics & Finance at the London School of Economics and Political Science. As a Visiting Fellow with the Centre for Advanced Study for India (CASI) at University of Pennsylvania, she worked on issues related to urban development.
Ms. Thakur has authored and published numerous articles in leading dailies and magazines on water resource management, urban development, social welfare legislation and financial inclusion.
Nishat Anjum is a Post-Doctoral Fellow in the National Data Innovation Centre (NDIC) at NCAER. She uses a combination of applied microeconomic theory and experiments to study questions in gender, labour, political economy, and behavioural development economics. She has been an Intern at the World Bank in the summer of 2025, where she helped design large-scale RCTs to understand how social norms affect youth behaviour. Earlier, she has worked as a Research Associate at the Centre for Sustainable Employment, Azim Premji University in 2021, on the India Working Survey (IWS).
Nishat holds a PhD and MA in Economics from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi, and a BSc (Hons) in Economics from St Xavier’s College, Kolkata.
Chandrika Ghosh is a Research Associate in the Investor Education and Protection Fund (IEPF) Chair Unit at NCAER. Her work involves empirical research and data-driven policy analysis in areas pertaining to financial awareness and regulatory frameworks. Prior to joining NCAER, she worked as an Academic Associate at the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore, where she supported teaching and research activities in the area of economics.
Her research interests lie at the intersection of international trade, firm dynamics, and environmental economics. She is particularly interested in how trade policies shape firm behaviour, market outcomes, and resource allocation. She is proficient in the use of empirical research tools such as Stata and LaTeX, and has working knowledge of R.
She holds a Master’s degree in Economics from St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata, with a specialisation in International Trade and Environmental Economics.
