CIS Team
CIS undertakes policy-focused, applied, and academic research on topics at the intersection of internet and society, driven by concerns of human rights and public interest. CIS is based in Bengaluru and New Delhi.
Senior Staff
Programme and Policy Officers
- Shweta Mohandas
- Yesha Tshering Paul
- Yatharth
- Nishkala
- Chetna
- Chiara
- Garima Agrawal
- Abhineet Nayyar
- Nishant Shankar
A2K Team Members
Administration and Finance
Non-Resident Fellow
Senior Staff
| Tanveer Hasan A K | ||
 |
Tanveer Hasan A K is the Executive Director of the Centre for Internet and Society. Previously, Tanveer worked at the Wikimedia Foundation leading global alliances for the Free and Open knowledge movement, and resource allocation in South Asia. In the past, Tanveer was also the Program Manager for CIS's Access to Knowledge project, and an Assistant Professor at the Centre for Indian Languages in Higher Education at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences TISS. | |
| Amrita Sengupta |
||
|---|---|---|
|
Amrita Sengupta is a Research and Programme Lead at CIS. Her research interests and work lie in the areas of gender and technology, digital cultures, ethics in research methods, digital access, algorithmic biases and tech design, and sustainability and tech. She holds an undergraduate degree in sociology from Miranda House, Delhi University and a post graduate degree in internet studies from the Oxford Internet Institute. In the past, Amrita has worked in managing and implementing large scale people practices, diversity and inclusion in the workplace, as well as in conducting and leading long-form research on impacts of tech on businesses and society, with both quantitative and qualitative methodologies.
|
| Anubha Sinha | |
|---|---|
 |
Anubha Sinha is a researcher working on impact of copyright law on access to knowledge, with a focus on users’ rights. She also tracks and comments on policymaking at international fora such as WTO and WIPO. She is a lawyer by training.
|
| Puthiya Purayil Sneha | ||
|---|---|---|
 |
Sneha is a Senior Researcher with the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), India. Her areas of interest and work include digital media and cultures, arts and humanities practice, scholarship and pedagogy, and access to knowledge.
|
|
| Pranav M B |
||
 |
Pranav is the Communications Lead at CIS. He has studied humanities and law at National Law School of India University, Bangalore. His previous work at CIS has primarily centred on Artificial Intelligence research, and research on issues surrounding Privacy, Cyber-security, and the Future of Work.
|
|
| Isha Suri |
||
|---|---|---|
 |
Isha Suri is a Research Lead at the Centre for Internet and Society. Her areas of interest include Telecom Policy, Competition Law, Internet Governance, Intellectual Property Rights, and Privacy and Data Protection. She holds an LL.B. (Hons.) with a specialisation in Intellectual Property Law from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur. She also has a degree in Electrical Engineering that often comes to her aid when grappling with complexities of the techno-legal domain.
|
|
| Pallavi Bedi | ||
 |
Pallavi is a Senior Researcher at CIS, where she works on privacy and data protection. She is a lawyer by training, and holds a BA, LLB (Hons) degree from the National Law Institute University, Bhopal and an LLM from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. E-mail: [email protected] |
|
| Pavan Santhosh Surampudi |
||
 |
Pavan currently spearheads the Access to Knowledge programme at the Centre for Internet and Society, focusing on catalysing the growth of the open knowledge movement across South Asia and in Indic languages. With a background of nearly a decade in the internet industry, he brings expertise in community building, content strategy, trust and safety operations, and forging partnerships. Pavan earlier worked with Quora as a community manager. His background includes launching and nurturing communities, fostering collaboration, auditing content, enforcing policies, and providing policy-level recommendations for Wikimedia projects. Pavan has been a dedicated contributor to Wikimedia Projects for many years and serves as one of the administrators for Telugu Wikipedia. His areas of interest and expertise lie in film studies, as well as the Telugu language and culture. | |
Researchers |
||
| Shweta Mohandas | ||
 |
Shweta is a Policy Officer at the Centre for Internet and Society, India. Her areas of work and interest include Artificial Intelligence, Privacy, and Intellectual Property Rights and India’s policies surrounding them. She is currently researching on the development and use of voice based technologies in India, with a focus on languages, accessibility and privacy.
|
|
|
|
||
| Yesha Tshering Paul | ||
 |
Yesha Tshering Paul is a Programme Officer at the Centre for Internet and Society and works on the Digital Identities project. She studied Law at ILS Law College, Pune, and has a Masters in Regulatory Governance from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai.
|
|
|
|
||
|
|
Yatharth is a Design Researcher with CIS. His interest areas include New Media Arts, Creative Technology and Design Edcation with Anti Caste and Critical perspectives. He is a Designer and Media Artist by training from National Institute of Design Ahmedabad. |
|
|
Nishkala is a researcher at CIS. Her research interests include urban inequality and the particular ways in which it is manifesting via platform labor, and in the digital world. She has a degree in development studies and mechanical engineering. |
|
|
Chetna is a social science researcher with a background in economics. She is interested in interdisciplinary research and seeks to understand the world in a more wholesome manner. After graduating with a master's from the University of Hyderabad in 2021, she has contributed to many research projects specifically pertaining to labour. At CIS, she researches the nature of work and challenges faced by workers in the platform economy. |
|
|
Chiara is a researcher at CIS, working on digital labour and the platformisation of work in the global south. Her areas of interest involve the politics of labour and technology, and differential experiences with digitalisation in contexts of structural inequalities. She has studied development and economics.
|
Garima is a researcher currently working on digital safety, data security and governance at the Centre for Internet and Society in Bangalore, India. She also works on understanding digitalisation's impact on access to information and services, and the shape of our working lives.
- Email: [email protected]
Abhineet is an IIC Fellow at CIS, working primarily on AI data supply chains in India's healthcare sector. His areas of interest also include data and privacy, digital competition, and the impact of technologies on workers. Abhineet is an engineer by training, with a minor in Philosophy, Economics, and Political Science, and a recipient of the YLAC Policy in Action and the UChicago Anubhav programmes.
- Email: [email protected]
Nishant is a Technology Researcher at CIS. His areas of work are primarily privacy and security, which he aims to situate within the political economy of computing. Trained in computer engineering and machine learning, he worked on dataset creation and language model development during his masters. Before joining CIS, he conducted research on the political economy of software development as part of the Programmable Infrastructures project at TU Delft. His areas of interest include the business of (cloud) computing, technology policy, and alternative computing infrastructures.
- Email: [email protected]
A2K Team Members
Subodh is Senior Program Officer in A2K team at CIS. He has been active on various development issues and has worked with several organizations across India. He is an active WIkimedian in several projects since 2015. He is working with CIS-A2K from 2017. Presently, he is building partnerships with various institutions, communities and research & social organisations to create free knowledge on Wikimedia projects. Digitisation and relicensing (releasing content in free license) are also his focus areas. He is developing 'Wiki communities with concern' for reliable, qualitative and sustainable content generation in the field of environment and gender issues.
- E-mail: [email protected]
Nivas is a Programme Associate with the A2K team of CIS. He has been contributing to various Wikimedia projects since 2017. Before joining CIS, he was a freelancer building customised data dashboards. Currently, he is working with the technical and language communities in the Wikimedia movement to improve the basic technical understanding of language Wikimedians while understanding their technical requirements and challenges. He is also working with FOSS communities based in India to enhance the technical community of Wikimedia. He is an engineer by training, currently pursuing his Masters and loves reading concepts and facts related to Classical Physics.
- E-mail: [email protected]
Chris is a Communications Associate for the Access to Knowledge team at the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS). Fluent in six languages, they are deeply committed to social justice advocacy, especially disability rights. As an advocate for abolitionist feminist praxis and transformative justice, Chris dedicates time to nurturing ecosystems of care and envisioning collective futures. Their research interests include media archeology, archival anxiety and gender justice. Chris believes in community collaboration and strives to restructure the existing knowledge production apparatus to hold space for the fullness of our humanities.
- E-mail: [email protected]
| Nitesh Gill | |
|---|---|
 |
Nitesh is a Program Officer in A2K team at CIS. She is an active Wikimedian since 2015. She joined the A2K team in 2019. Currently, she is coordinating content creation programs in collaboration with communities. She is supporting the communities and individuals through the A2K request page. She is handling social media channels and overall communications. Email: [email protected] |
| K N Medini | |
 |
Medini is a Program Officer in A2K team at CIS. Prior to joining CIS, she worked in NGO sector. Medini has been working closely with the CIS-A2K team since 2019 handling finance and administration works besides providing logistics support towards organising events.
|
Administration and Finance
| Ajoy Kumar | |
|---|---|
 |
Ajoy is an Administrator at the CIS. He manages all the events organised by CIS including hotel and travel bookings, does the liasoning with government offices and Members of Parliament, etc. Ajoy also works as a part-time lawyer doing property documentation.
|
| Nagaraj MP | |
|---|---|
 |
Nagaraj has a background in Advanced Accountancy with a specialisation in NGO Accounting and Practices. As Manager - Finance and Operations, he handles the preparation of accounts statements, statuary compliance, budget and monitoring, and accounts for all research projects at CIS. He has previously worked at Centre for the Study of Culture and Society (CSCS), ‘Kalike’ associate organisation of TATA Trusts, India Foundation for the Arts (IFA), Ramaiah Public Policy Centre, and CIS in its early days.
|
Nima Lama 
Nima has been in charge of security at CIS since 2015. He maintains the daily staff register and provides assistance to the administration team. Prior to CIS, Nima worked as a security person at a car parking solution.
Royson is the Office Assistant in the Bangalore office. He assists the administration department in organising events, takes videos of the events, uploads them to the CIS website, Blip TV, YouTube, etc.
- Email: [email protected]
Chandra has been working as an Accounts Officer with CIS since 2018 with specialties in Accounts and Banking, managing accounting software like Tally, bank accounts, bookkeeping, different types of financials for projects, utilisation certificates, etc. Earlier, he was an Officer at a nationalised bank, and thereafter was associated with a Chartered Accountant.
- Email: [email protected]
Non-Resident Fellow
Ambika Tandon studies the intersections of gender and technology. She focuses on women’s work in the digital economy, and the impact of emerging technologies on social inequality. She is also interested in developing feminist methods for technology research.
- E-mail: ambika[at]cis-india.org
- Twitter: @AmbikaTandon
Filed under:
Internet Governance
