Curriculum Vitae
Education
2014 –
Ph.D Candidate, Department 'Law & Anthropology', Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle/Saale, Germany
Thesis: ‘Understanding Litigants’ Approach to Dispute Resolution in India’ (working title)
2009 - 2010
LLM (Human Rights), Queen Mary College, University of London, UK
Subjects: International and Comparative Social Justice (assessed by essay), Ethnic Minorities and the Law and Judicial Protection in the E.U. (assessed by examination)
Thesis: ‘Cultural Evidence in Court: A Perspective on the English Criminal Justice System’
2002 - 2007
LLB, ILS Law College, University of Pune, India
Subjects: Constitutional Law, Administrative Law, Jurisprudence, Human Rights and International Law, Civil and Criminal Procedural Codes.
Research Experience
February 2013 – November 2013
Research Officer, Centre on Law and Society, Institute of Education and Social Research - Bharatiya Jain Sanghatana, Pune, India
October 2012
Research Associate, Women’s Studies Centre, ILS Law College, University of Pune, India
October 2010 – October 2012
Research Associate, National Centre for Advocacy Studies, Pune, India
Professional Activities
January 2008 – August 2009
Associate Advocate, Negandhi, Shah and Himayatullah, law firm in Mumbai, India
March 2006 – May 2007
Journalist, The Indian Express Newspapers, Pune, India
March 2004 – February 2006
Journalist, Maharashtra Herald Newspapers, Pune, India
March 2003 – February 2004
Journalist, Magna Publications, Pune, India
June 2002
Intership, CNN India
Fieldwork
June 2012 – December 2013
India (Maharashtra). Field research in the lower courts to understand experiences of judges, lawyers and litigants with litigation involving application of personal law in the taluka courts.
January 2011 - June 2012
India (Maharashtra). Field research in the lower courts to understand whether and how economic and social rights are claimed in the lower courts.
Presentations at Conferences and Workshops
2015
‘What Women Want: Reflecting on Women and Forum Shopping Strategies’, presentation of preliminary fieldwork observations made as part of the PhD research at the conference Governance and Management of Gender Relations: A Comparative Study of Law and Society organised by Faculty of Law, University of Dhaka and hosted by British Council in collaboration with SOAS, University of London at the University of Dhaka, Bangladesh, 23-26 February 2015.
2015
‘Accessing Economic and Social Rights’, presentation of research findings from research project titled ‘Grappling at the Grassroots: Access to Justice in India’s Lower Tier’ at the National Conference of the Judges of the District Judiciary on Access to Justice, National Judicial Academy, Bhopal, India, 23-25 January 2015.
2014
‘At First Instance: Experiences with Application of Personal Law in Indian Courtrooms’, Working Paper, Diversity and the Courts: Judicial Pluralism in India, Department of Law, University of Turin, Torino, Italy, 18-19 September 2014.
2014
‘An All but Trivial Abortion: Scrutinising Sex Selection Legislation in India through the Lens of Women’s Autonomy’, Working Paper, (Not) Outside My Culture: The paradoxes of personal autonomy in a plural society organised by Department 'Law & Anthropology' at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle/Saale, Germany, 26-28 May 2014.
2013
‘Understanding the Silence: When Courts don’t speak about Religion’, Working Paper, International Conference on Law and Society organised by World Academy of Science, Education and Technology in Paris, France, 27-28 June 2013.
2013
‘Understanding the Silence: When Courts don’t speak about Religion’, Working Paper, Network of Transnational Doctoral Research – 2013 Programme organised by School of Oriental and African Studies (London) and Department of Comparative Law at the School of Law in Lucerne (Switzerland), 19-20 April 2013.
2013
‘Pursuit of Economic and Social Rights in India’s lower courts’, presentation of research findings at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London, UK, 23 April 2013.
2012
‘Not so Plural: Muslim Law in the Taluka Courts of India’, presentation of research findings, Rethinking Religion in India IV: Secularism, Religion and Law jointly organised by Research Centre Vergelijkende Cultuurwetenschap (Ghent University, Belgium), the Karnataka State Law University (Hubli, India), the Centre for the Study of Local Cultures (Kuvempu University, India), the India Platform UGent (Ghent University, Belgium) and the Karnataka Academy of Social Sciences and Humanities (ĀSHA), 24-27 November 2012.
2011
‘Human Rights: From the Cornerstone of Culture’, conference on Challenges to Human Rights in the 21st Century, Bombay University, India, 24-26 February 2011.
Languages
English (fluent)
Marathi (mother tongue)
Hindi (fluent)
German (beginner)