Kaustav Mehta, Teaching Fellow, Data Science, SIAS’ undergraduate capstone thesis titled ‘Exploring comorbidity networks in mild traumatic brain injury subjects through graph theory: a traumatic brain injury model systems study’ has been published in BMC Neurology. The paper is co-authored by Dr Shyam Kumar Sudhakar, Assistant Professor, Biological Sciences, SIAS.
Dr Proma Raychaudhury, Assistant Professor, Politics, SIAS recently published an op-ed in Bengali at Anandabazar Patrika, an analysis of the Trump-Zelensky interaction through the performative approach to populist politics. Read here.
Dr Raychaudhary also delivered an invited lecture at Adamas University’s Guest Lecture Series on Exploring Women’s Participation and Representation in Indian Politics on 10 March 2025. She also delivered an online talk at a public forum on political science called Rashtrabiggan Charchakendra on 15 March 2025. Watch the talk
Dr Sambaiah Gundimeda, Associate Professor, Politics, SIAS has published an essay, Telangana’s SC subclassification risks reinforcing old inequities in Frontline (10 March 2025).
About the Essay
Following the Supreme Court’s verdict on the sub-classification of SC reservations, the Telangana government took the initiative to implement this by categorising 59 Dalit castes into three groups based on their socio-economic and educational status. While the move aims to ensure more equitable distribution, concerns persist about dominant sub-groups potentially monopolizing the benefits.
To achieve true justice, Gundimeda suggests a merit-based equity model that considers factors such as generational access, educational background, and employment history. This model would prioritise the most disadvantaged individuals within each sub-group. Additionally, he advocates for gender justice by proposing a sub-quota for women within each category.
While Telangana’s decision is significant, its long-term success hinges on the careful and nuanced implementation of this policy to prevent further marginalization. The proposed model could serve as a framework for other states, ensuring fair representation while addressing the structural inequalities that Ambedkar envisioned in his approach to reservations.
Dr Jyoti Kumari, Assistant Professor, Finance, Accounting and Quantitative Finance, IFMR GSB has been awarded the ICSSR Project Grant under the Major Research Projects Grant for 2024-25. The recommended title of the research project is, ‘The Role of Alternative Data in Expanding the Credit Access: A Study of Fintech Innovations in India.’
Ananya Manikandan, an MBA student at IFMR GSB secured the Runner-up position in Vitarka, held as part of Fiesta’25 by FMS Delhi. The competition featured two rounds: Article Writing, where Ananya demonstrated analytical and articulation skills through thought-provoking articles, and Extempore, where she engaged in spontaneous speaking on contemporary societal issues.
As a part of the prize, Ananya has been awarded an internship opportunity with Mobile Creches, a non-profit organization dedicated to early childhood care, education, nutrition, and healthcare for children of migrant and construction workers
Professor Anil Srinivasan, Visiting Professor of Practice, Literature and the Arts, SIAS, received the iconic Anjali Khandwalla Memorial Award. The award, instituted and presented by Dr Pradeep Khandwalla, former Director of IIM Ahmedabad, is given annually to an outstanding teacher or educator. Nominations are submitted by scholars, and the jury consists exclusively of teachers and professors. The event was held at MICA, Ahmedabad which is Professor Srinivasan’s alma mater.
Dr Sayandeb Chowdhury, Senior Assistant Professor, Literature, SIASwrote about the sophistication of a psychoanalytical approach to stardom, and the unique daring of its leading actor in Satyajit Ray’s Nayak (The Hero, 1966), starring the Bengali screen icon Uttam Kumar, which was re-released after a digital restoration across the country on February 21 2025.
The same film occasioned a piece in Bangla about the idea of the public in popular culture. For readers who can read Bangla, head here
Dr Rangachary Kommanduri’s paper titled, ‘STAD-AI: Spatio-temporal Anomaly Detection in Videos with Attentive Dual-Stage Integration’ has been published in the Neurocomputing journal (Q1, Impact Factor = 5.5).
This work presents STAD-AI, a novel framework for video anomaly detection that combines spatio-temporal attention-based feature extraction with an attentive U-Net architecture for precise anomaly prediction.
Dr Kommanduri is Visiting Assistant Professor, Data Science at SIAS.
Dipanjali Deka, Visiting Assistant Professor, Centre for Writing and Pedagogy (Krea-CWP) was a guest musician at the Malwa Mahila Kabir Yatra, held from 28 February to 2 March 2025, in Madhya Pradesh. Malwa Mahila Kabir Yatra is a travelling folk music festival that celebrates women’s voices and the music and poetry of the mystic poets of the subcontinent.
Dr Chirag Dhara, Assistant Professor, Environmental Studies, SIAS delivered a talk at IISER, Pune based on their recently published paper, ‘A scalability-centric perspective on global human development within environmental limits’ on 28 February 2025. The talk was delivered as part of the ECS Seminar and was titled, ‘What levels of development can humanity “sustainably” aspire to?’
