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Krea University · 5th Annual Convocation
Graduating Students
Recipients of Honorary Doctorates
Event Overview
Krea University’s Convocation 2026 witnessed the graduation of 477 students from across undergraduate, master’s and doctoral programmes. Dr Justice D Y Chandrachud, Former Chief Justice of India, was the Chief Guest at the ceremony.
On 13 June, Krea University hosted its fifth Convocation ceremony at The Music Academy, Chennai. The event witnessed the graduation of the BA, BSc, BA (Honours) and BSc (Honours) Cohorts of the School of Interwoven Arts and Sciences (SIAS), and the BBA, 2-year MBA, 3-year L&T MBA and PhD Cohorts of IFMR Graduate School of Business (GSB). Two honorary doctorates were also conferred during the ceremony. Professor Satya Chakravarthy, Professor, IIT Madras and Co-Founder & Technical Lead, The ePlane Company was awarded Doctor of Science, honoris causa (D Sc), and Professor Kaushik Basu, Professor of Economics and Carl Marks Professor of International Studies at the Department of Economics and SC Johnson Graduate School of Management, Cornell University was awarded the the Doctor of Letters, honoris causa (D Litt).
Chief Guest
Former Chief Justice of India
Hon’ble Dr Justice Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud served the nation for nearly twenty-five years as a Judge of the Bombay High Court, Chief Justice of the Allahabad High Court, Judge of the Supreme Court of India, and as the 50th Chief Justice of India.
Educated at St Stephen’s College and the Campus Law Centre, University of Delhi, he earned his LLM and SJD from Harvard Law School. He practised at the Bombay High Court, was designated Senior Advocate in 1998, and served as Additional Solicitor General of India.
Among the most influential jurists of his generation, his judgments span constitutional law, human rights, commercial law, arbitration and taxation. He strengthened constitutional protections of dignity, liberty and equality, championing gender justice, disability rights and free speech. His landmark decisions include recognising privacy as a fundamental right and affirming equality across caste, religion and sexuality.
As Chief Justice of India, he spearheaded the digital transformation of the judiciary, including the live-streaming of court proceedings and expanding public access to judgments through initiatives such as e-SCR. His book, Why the Constitution Matters, reflects his enduring commitment to constitutional values, institutional integrity and democratic governance.
Honorary Doctorates
Professor, IIT Madras
Co-Founder & Technical Lead, The ePlane Company
Doctor of Science, honoris causa (D Sc)
Professor Satya Chakravarthy is a deep-tech serial entrepreneur and Professor at IIT Madras, bringing a rare mix of entrepreneurial experience and academic depth. He holds a BTech in Aerospace Engineering from IIT Madras and a PhD in Aerospace Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology. His work spans aerospace, spacetech, AI, and autonomy, drawing insights across frontier-technology ventures. At IIT Madras, he engages one of India’s strongest research ecosystems, accelerating prototyping, testing, and access to top-tier talent while enabling strategic partnerships across the deep-tech world.
Driven by a curiosity for the skies and a vision for a transformed future, Professor Chakravarthy has blended academic pursuit with entrepreneurial action. He has launched ventures addressing challenges in mobility, space, and aerial technologies, from ePlane’s short-range electric flight to GalaxEye’s space-based intelligence, Agnikul’s agile access to orbit, Amber Wings’ drone systems, and TuTr Hyperloop’s high-speed ground mobility.
He engages actively in public speaking and educational outreach, delivering TEDx talks and industry lectures, alongside teaching specialised courses such as Combustion and Electric Aircraft Propulsion. His philosophy of “Defrastructure” champions innovation designed for real-world impact.
Professor of Economics and Carl Marks Professor of International Studies, Cornell University
Doctor of Letters, honoris causa (D Litt)
Professor Kaushik Basu is Professor of Economics and Carl Marks Professor at Cornell University. He was the Chief Economist of the World Bank (2012–16) and Chief Economic Adviser to the Government of India (2009–2012).
Professor Basu received his PhD and MSc (Econ) from the London School of Economics and a BA (Hons) from St Stephen’s College, Delhi. He is a Fellow of the Econometric Society and has received honorary doctorates from several institutes and universities, including IIT Bombay and the University of Bath, UK. He is a recipient of the Humboldt Research Award (2021).
He has published widely in development economics, industrial organisation and game theory. His books include The Republic of Beliefs: A New Approach to Law and Economics (Princeton University Press, 2018). His works have been translated into several languages, including Chinese, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Polish and French. Professor Basu has contributed articles to magazines and newspapers such as The New York Times, Scientific American and BBC News Online.
In 2008, he was awarded the Padma Bhushan by the President of India. Professor Basu has held visiting positions at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton; Harvard University; Princeton University; and MIT.
The years ahead will present questions for which there will be no answer key. Some will concern technology and others will concern the environment. Many will concern your own personal existence. Many will concern the kind of society we wish to build together. When those moments arrive, I hope you will remember that progress and patience are not adversaries. Conviction and generosity can coexist. Serious purpose is entirely compatible with a sense of humor. The world rarely needs more noise, but it almost always benefits from greater judgment. In judgment, we ought not to be judgmental. If there is one habit worth carrying from your years at Krea into the decades ahead, it is the habit of resisting easy certainties and thinking carefully before deciding what to believe.”
Former Chief Justice of India
“Our students talk across academic boundaries all the time, learning from one another as well as from a multitude of extra-curricular activities. I’d say they live in hothouses for unstructured learning. Krea’s education is already known for its breadth, choice, and inter-disciplinarity. It’s special, and this difference matters, if society is in need of more broadly educated leaders and citizens. The case for breadth centres on the proposition that the greatest challenges facing the world today are of huge complexity and global scope, best tackled by people whose education enables them to integrate different fields of knowledge and work across conventional academic boundaries”
Vice Chancellor, Krea University
“You leave here carrying more than a degree. You carry adaptability — the readiness to keep learning long after any classroom. You carry human-centred judgment — empathy, creativity, cultural intelligence. You carry interdisciplinary insight, the rare ability to link philosophy with technology, mathematics with ethics, ecology with enterprise. These are not soft skills. They are the hardest skills there are. And they are yours.”
Chancellor, Krea University
