Dr Chirag Dhara, Assistant Professor, Environmental Studies, SIAS, has authored an opinion piece in Scroll.in titled ‘India’s summer forecast is a warning that extreme heat can affect democracy’.
In the article, he highlights the risk of what he terms “inequitable climate disenfranchisement,” pointing to how intense heatwaves during upcoming Assembly elections could impact voter participation.
Dr C P Anil Kumar, Associate Professor, Mathematics, SIAS, has been selected to train Indian students for the International Mathematical Competition for University Students 2026, to be held in Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria, from 27 July-3 August 2026. The students being trained have been selected from among those who excelled in the Madhava Mathematics Competition.
Abhayraj Naik, Visiting Associate Professor of Practice, Environmental Studies, SIAS, has co-authored a chapter titled South Asia: Rights of Nature in India and Bangladesh in the recently-released second edition of the book Earth Law: Emerging Ecocentric Law – A Guide for Practitioners (Aspen Publishing).
Dr Anannya Dasgupta, Director, Krea-CWP and Associate Professor, Literature, SIAS, and Dr Anakshi Pal, Visiting Assistant Professor, Krea-CWP, conducted a Faculty Development Workshop titled ‘The Body and Soul of Research Writing’ at the Madras Christian College (MCC), Chennai, on 11 March 2026.
Dr Shyam Kumar Sudhakar, Associate Professor, Biological Sciences, SIAS, delivered a talk titled ‘Graph-based and Machine Learning Approaches to Understanding Brain Health and Function’ as part of the Synapse neuroscience conference, held from 6-7 March 2026 at IISER Tirupati. Undergraduate students from Krea, Nidhi, Zoeya, and Kailash also presented their ideas during the ideathon held alongside the conference. Synapse 2026 was two day neuroscience focussed symposium funded by ANRF and IISER Tirupati, hosting ideathon competitions, poster presentation and research talks.
A paper by Dr Lakshmi Narayanan, Assistant Professor, Environmental Studies, SIAS, titled Global response of low and mid-latitude ionosphere to the severe geomagnetic storm of April 2023 has been publishedin the Journal of Astrophysics and Astronomy. The paper is published as a part of the special issue ‘The evolution and space weather impact of coronal mass ejections’ organised following a workshop at Krea University in early 2024 that brought together scientists from India and the USA. This paper is a case study of an intense space weather event in the present solar cycle. A detailed investigation of response of low and midlatitude ionosphere to the geomagnetic storm generated by a coronal mass ejection was made in the study. Data from in-situ plasma density measurements made by European Space Agency’s Swarm satellite mission is used in the study. Interestingly, the findings reveal that conventional magnetic and space weather indices do not adequately predict the nature of the ionospheric response. This work also contributes to the ongoing ANRF EMITS project, highlighting its broader relevance to space weather research.
Professor Anil Srinivasan, Visiting Professor of Practice, Literature and the Arts, SIAS, was conferred the prestigious award of RCME Dronacharya Award in October 2025.
More recently Professor Anil was the keynote speaker at ThinkEdu 2026 by The New Indian Express. Anil headlined the discussion titled ‘AI in Arts: Why Humanity Will Survive’.
Vidhya Sathishkumar, Teaching Fellow, OB&HR, IFMR GSB, presented a research paper titled ‘Women and Work-Life Integration in the Digital Era’ at the 2nd Case and Research Conference 2026 organised by Indian Institute of Management Nagpur (IIM Nagpur). The paper is co-authored with Naveen M, Teaching Fellow, Marketing & Communication, IFMR GSB. The paper examines the evolving dynamics of digital work environments and their implications for women’s work-life integration.
Dr Chirag Dhara, Assistant Professor, Environmental Studies, SIAS, has co-authored an op-ed titled Lost in war: An alternative template of governance, published in Hindustan Times. The article discusses the current assault on Rojava, and why it’s a matter of grave concern for all.
Dr Madhavilatha Maganti, Associate Professor, Psychology, SIAS, was involved in multiple academic engagements recently.
Dr Madhavilatha delivered a flash talk on 18 February 2026 at the Institute for the Science of Early Years and Youth (ISEY), University of East London, presenting work from the Infant and child Development Lab on ‘Analysing caregiver-infant interactions with high and low-risk infants’ as part of the workshop on ‘Novel Methods for Parent-Child Interaction Research.’
She also participated in a 2-day workshop on ‘Naturalistic Experimentation of Child Development (NECD)’ on 19-20 February 2026.
The workshop highlighted methods for analysing naturalistic experimental data in developmental research. Dr Madhavilatha presented Krea’s lab work on parent-child interactions and neurodevelopmental studies in low- and middle-income settings, addressing practical challenges in community-based research, cultural diversity, and inclusive research practices.
From 24–25 February 2026, Dr Madhavilatha held discussions with faculty at the University of Exeter on potential collaboration and research partnerships, and presented an overview of Psychology at Krea, highlighting its research laboratories and faculty research interests.
On 26 February 2026, Dr Madhavilatha delivered a talk titled ‘The Multimodal Nature of Early Experiences in High and Low-Risk Infants: What’s Going on in Their Tiny Minds?’ for MSc Clinical Psychology students and Psychology faculty at the University of Exeter, as part of the Think Tank/CYP Wellbeing Network seminar.
