Recasting Citizenship for Development - File UPI

About the Editor and Contributors 395
local government school. She combines interests in research, training and
communication. As the Mysore District Coordinator for Mahila Samakhya,
Karnataka, she has worked with tribal women. She has edited newsletters
and magazines, and works with a street theatre group, Jagruthi; her monoact
Baki ithihasa on women’s empowerment is popular as a training tool
and public performance. Presently, under a fellowship from the Population
Council, Delhi, she is developing a training manual for youth on sensitive
partnership and responsible parenthood.
P. Ignatius Prabhakar spent his early years in a south Indian village. He
has a Masters and a Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Madras.
His research on grassroots-level democracy and people’s participation
involved 10 years of fieldwork and academic experience in tribal studies,
medical anthropology, development studies and participatory research.
He is presently a postdoctoral fellow at the French Institute, Pondicherry,
in a Social Water Management Programme, researching the socio-political
impact and outcomes of irrigation institutions. Earlier he was with the
M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation, Chennai, working on social
capital among self-help groups.
Shobhita Rajagopal, Associate Professor at the Institute of Development
Studies, Jaipur, has been a researcher and trainer in women’s development
and gender issues for 20 years. She has also been active in the women’s
movement in Rajasthan. Her research has focused on women’s subordination,
access to crucial resources, modes of collective empowerment
and mainstreaming gender concerns in policy planning and
implementation. Her current research includes gender and education,
childhood poverty, violence against women, gender poverty and livelihoods.
She has been involved in the gender training of development planners,
practitioners and NGOs at the national, state and international levels,
and has published extensively.
Rajesh Ramakrishnan trained as an electronics engineer and turned to
rural development and natural resources management after graduating
from the Institute of Rural Management, Anand, Gujarat. He worked for
the Society for Promotion of Wastelands Development for over eight years,
and is now Senior Consultant at Taru Leading Edge, New Delhi, focusing
on natural resources management, livelihoods and governance.
He supports various people’s movements; his broader interests include
political economy, imperialism, education and Marxism.