CIS Team

Sunil is the Executive Director of CIS. He is also a social entrepreneur and Free Software advocate. He founded Mahiti in 1998 which aims to reduce the cost and complexity of Information and Communication Technology for the Voluntary Sector by using Free Software. Today, Mahiti employs more than 50 engineers and Sunil continues to serve on the board as a board member. Sunil was elected an Ashoka fellow in 1999 to 'explore the democratic potential of the Internet' and was granted a Sarai FLOSS fellowship in 2003. Between June 2004 and June 2007, he managed the International Open Source Network, a project of the UNDP's Asia-Pacific Development Information Programme serving 42 countries in the Asia-Pacific region. Between September 2007 and June 2008, he also managed ENRAP, an electronic network of International Fund for Agricultural Development projects in the Asia-Pacific facilitated and co-funded by International Development Research Centre, Canada.

Sunil is the co-author for the following publications:

• Unlicensed Spectrum Policy Brief for Government of India
• Open Government Data Study
• Digital Natives with a Cause? A Report
• Read Sunil's detailed resume here.
• Email: [email protected].
• Phone: +91 96111 00817

Elonnai is Chief Operating Officer at the CIS. Elonnai has graduated from the University of Toronto where she studied international development and political science. Elonnai leads the privacy, surveillance, and big data work at the Centre and has also written extensively on issues pertaining to intermediary liability, digital rights, identity, cyber security and DNA profiling. Elonnai has also worked as a consultant with the Open Society Foundations and with the Ranking Digital Rights project.

Her publications include:

• Rebecca MacKinnon, Elonnai Hickok, Allon Bar, Hae-in Lim, UNESCO, Fostering Freedom Online: The Role of Online Intermediaries. http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0023/002311/231162e.pdf
• Elonnai Hickok. GIS Watch. Intermediary Liability and State Surveillance. http://www.giswatch.org/tl/users/elonnai
• Elonnai Hickok and Gertjan Boulet. Justletter IT. Post-Snowden reactions in India and Belgium: A Snap Shot. http://www.academia.edu/7087154/Post-Snowden_reactions_in_India_and_Belgium_A_snapshot
• David Kessler, Sue Ross, and Elonnai Hickok. NLSIR. A Comparative Analysis of Indian Privacy Law and the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Cross Border Privacy Rules.
• Sunil Abraham and Elonnai Hickok. International Data Privacy Law. Government Access to Private Sector Data in India. http://idpl.oxfordjournals.org/content/2/4/302.full.pdf

As a Director at the CIS, I co-lead the [email protected] programme and contribute to academic and public policy research on access to knowledge, data governance, and digital economy. My own research focuses at the intersections of media technologies and political economy. I am also keenly interested in computational techniques in arts, humanities, and social research, and methodological questions thereof. I studied economics in Visva-Bharati, Shantiniketan, and in Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi. I was a member of the founding team at the MOD Institute, Bangalore; led a data analysis and visualisation project at the Azim Premji University, Bangalore; and was a Research Associate at the Sarai programme, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi.

• E-mail: [email protected]
• Resume: Download (PDF)
• Twitter: @sumandr0
• ORCID: 0000-0001-5724-4557

Amber is a Research Director at the CIS. He works on issues surrounding privacy, big data, and cyber security. Amber is interested in the impact of emerging technologies like artificial intelligence and learning algorithms on existing legal frameworks, and how they need to evolve in response. He has studied humanities and law at National Law School of India University, Bangalore.

• E-mail: [email protected]
• Twitter: @ambersinha07

Sneha is the Programme Manager of the [email protected] programme at the CIS. Her training is in Humanities, and she has previously worked in the field of higher education. She is presently engaged with a project on mapping the emergent field of Digital Humanities in India, and is also interested in questions on the nature of textuality, reading and writing practices in the digital sphere.

• Email: [email protected]

Tito is a Programme Officer associated with the Access to Knowledge team at the CIS, and his work focuses on supporting Indic Wikimedia Communities and community members to plan and conduct Wiki-events.

• E-mail: [email protected]
• Wikimedia Meta: Tito_(CIS-A2K)
• User page (English Wikipedia): Titodutta

Arindrajit is a Research Manager at the Centre for Internet & Society with the Cyber Security Project. His primary interests lie in the fields of International Relations and Public Law. His work at CIS focuses largely on developing normative frameworks for the regulation of emerging technologies internationally and conceptualizing the strategic role that India and other emerging economies can play in this space. He is a lawyer by training and holds a BA,LLB (Hons) degree from the National University of Juridical Sciences (NUJS), Kolkata and a LLM in Public International Law from the University of Cambridge, UK.

• E-mail: [email protected]
• Twitter: @BasuArindrajit

Gurshabad manages legal and technical research in the freedom of expression team at CIS. He is interested in Indian constitutional law, intermediary liability, and advancing public interest in standards bodies such as the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). Prior to joining CIS, Gurshabad worked as a Legislative Assistant to a Member of Parliament (LAMP) Fellow. Gurshabad holds a degree in computer science and engineering.

• E-mail: [email protected]
• Website: https://gurshabad.github.io/
• Github: https://github.com/gurshabad/
• Twitter: @GurshabadGrover

Aayush is a policy offer at CIS. He is currently engaged in exploring and contributing to emerging conversations around the future of work as well as cybersecurity. He has previously worked as a labour lawyer post his graduation in law and humanities from the National University of Juridical Sciences, Kolkata.

• E-mail: [email protected]
• Twitter: @RathiAayush

Ambika is a Senior Policy Officer at CIS, working on gender-based research in areas such as the future of work, sexual and reproductive health, and privacy. She is interested in the application of feminist research methods. She completed her postgraduate in Media and Development at the London School of Economics, and her undergraduate in English Literature from St. Stephen's College at the University of Delhi. . 

• E-mail: ambika[at]cis-india.org
• Twitter: @AmbikaTandon

Karan is a Policy Officer at the Centre for Internet and Society—interested in exploring and contributing to issues pertaining to the areas of digital security and privacy. Karan is a practitioner of responsible vulnerability disclosure.

• E-mail: [email protected]

Khetrimayum Monish Singh is a Programme Officer at the CIS. He works on data governance and is interested in questions around data-driven community experiences and practices, specifically with regard to access, security, and identity. He has submitted his doctoral thesis at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.

• Email: [email protected] / [email protected]

Mira is a programme officer at CIS. She has a bachelor of law degree from School of Law Christ University, Bangalore. At CIS, she works on projects relating to Digital Identity, Free Speech, Cyber Security and Regulatory Practices.

• E-mail: [email protected]

Pallavi is a Senior Policy Officer at CIS where she will be conducting research on data protection and privacy. She is a lawyer by training having done her Undergraduation from the National Law Institute University, Bhopal and her Postgraduation in Public International Law from the Fletcher School of Law, Tufts University. Prior to joining CIS, she worked with a corporate law firm and the United Nations Development Programme, New Delhi.

• E-mail: [email protected]

Pranav is a Policy Officer at CIS. His work at CIS is primarily centred on Artificial Intelligence research, and research on issues surrounding Privacy, Cyber-security, and the Future of Work.

• E-mail: [email protected]
• Twitter: @pranavbarkwhip

Radhika is a Programme Officer at at the Centre for Internet and Society, working on feminist approaches to Artificial Intelligence policy. She has a Masters degree in Women's Studies from Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, and a Bachelors degree in Computer Science Engineering from M.S. Ramaiah Institute of Technology, Bangalore. She also works with the Internet Governance Forum of United Nations-DESA as a Consultant to the Secretariat for the Best Practice Forum on Gender and Access, and has worked with the Women’s Rights Programme of the Association for Progressive Communications in the past. Her research areas include Feminist Implications of Artificial Intelligence, Feminist Studies of Technology, and Feminist Internet Governance.

• Preferred pronouns: She/her
• E-mail: [email protected]
• Twitter: @so_radhikal
• LinkedIn: Radhika Radhakrishnan

Saumyaa works as a designer and researcher. She creates visualisations and infographics to communicate research produced at CIS. She also works on critically examining the role of design in digital products and services, and in applying design for issues such as privacy, security, access to knowledge, and accessibility. While working for a graphic design studio, she was involved in creating information maps for historical monuments in Delhi. She is a Communication Design graduate from the National Institute of Fashion Technology, Delhi, and has a master’s degree in Social Design from Ambedkar University Delhi. Her interests include design history, design criticism, and cultural studies.

• E-mail: saumyaa[at]cis-india.org

Shruti is a programme officer at CIS, working on the project of digital identity. She is interested in exploring the use of technology that has the potential to increase inclusivity and safeguard individual rights. She completed her studies in law and humanities from the Gujarat National Law University.

• E-mail: [email protected]
• Twitter: @trikshruti

Shweta is a Policy Officer at the Centre for Internet and Society. Her areas of work and interest include Artificial Intelligence, Privacy and Intellectual Property Rights and India’s policies surrounding these issues. Prior to CIS she was a Research Associate to the (DIPP) Intellectual Property Rights Chair at IIT Madras. She has an LLM in Public International Law with a special focus on International Human Rights Law, Cyberspace Law and Climate Change Law and Policy.

• E-mail: [email protected]
• Twitter: @says_shweta

Shweta is a Programme officer at CIS. She has a bachelor of law degree from Jindal Global Law School. At CIS she works on Privacy, Regulatory Practice and Artificial Intelligence.

• E-mail: [email protected]

Tanaya is a Policy Officer at the Centre for Internet and Society. She is a lawyer by training, having studies humanities and law at the National Law University, Delhi. At CIS, she works on issues pertaining to internet governance, intermediary liability, and freedom of expression in the digital world.

Email: [email protected]

Torsha is a lawyer by qualification, and currently a Policy Officer at CIS. Her primary interests are freedom of expression, intermediary liability and best practices in online content moderation..

• E-mail: [email protected]
• Twitter: @TorShark

Yesha is a Programme Officer at the CIS 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.

• E-mail: [email protected]
• Twitter: @oldpinkdog

Ranjit is a PhD candidate at the Department of Science and Technology Studies, Cornell University. His dissertation project, Seeing Like an Infrastructure, examines the legal, administrative, and technological challenges in the implementation of India’s biometrics-based national identification project, Aadhaar. He is also involved in the Life of a Tuple project on the conceptualization, design, and implementation of an updated version of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam, India. Both projects are geared towards elucidating the rapidly changing understandings, practices, and evaluations of the state-citizen relationship mediated by information infrastructures in India.

• E-mail: [email protected]
• Website: http://ranjitsingh.me/

Ananth is a Programme Associate (Technical skills and metrics) with the Access To Knowledge team at the Centre for Internet and Society. He is a MSc student at Christ University, specialising in Mathematics.

• E-mail: [email protected]
• Wikimedia Meta: Ananth_subray
• User page (Kannada Wikipedia): Ananth_subray

Subodh is a Community Advocate with the Access To Knowledge team at the CIS.

• E-mail: [email protected]
• Wikimedia Meta: Subodhkiran

Suswetha has been contributing to Wikimedia and it's sister projects since November 2017 and I mainly contribute to En Wikipedia, Te Wikipedia, Wikidata. She is an undergraduate at VVIT and her major is Electronics and Communication. She is also part of the club VVIT WikiConnect and currently working as Project Tiger coordinator for 2019 at CIS A2K!

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.

• Email: [email protected]
• Resume: Download (PDF)

Medini is a Senior Accounts Officer at the Centre for Internet and Society. Medini began her work as an accountant in 1992. After completing her Bachelors in Commerce from Andhra Pradesh S V University, she procured a Diploma in Accounts and began working with a Chartered Accountant to learn the ropes of her profession. For the past fifteen years she has worked with Chartered Accountants, companies and NGOs in handling company and organisation’s accounts. In 2003, she joined the Accounts team of Partners in Child Development, an EveryChild partner. In 2004, she joined EveryChild India as the Head Office Accountant. Since then she has been managing the organisation’s accounts and streamlining into handling the organisation’s partners project accounts. Having been with EveryChild India since its inception, Medini has seen the organisation grow from infancy into adulthood. A mother of two, Medini loves to play with her children and make handicraft items in her free time.

• E-mail: [email protected]

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]