Prof. (Dr.) Viney Kapoor Mehra

Advisor

Prof. (Dr.) Viney Kapoor Mehra is the Founder Vice Chancellor of the Dr. BR Ambedkar National Law University (DBRANLU) at Sonipat. To know more about her, click here.

A V Narsimha Rao

Co-Chair

Prof A V Narsimha Rao is a Post Graduate in Business Laws and Ph D in Environmental Laws. His areas of interests include the Corporate and Commercial Laws, Insurance Law, Environmental Laws, IPR Law and Banking Laws. He has nearly 20 years of teaching and research and 20 years of industry experience. He has conceptualised the law Journals on various areas of law for the ICFAI University Press and edited Journals like, the ICFAI Journal of Intellectual Property, the ICFAI Journal of Insurance Law, the ICFAI Journal of Alternative Dispute Resolution and presently editing the IUP Law Review which is published quarterly. He has guided Ph D and LLM Students for their dissertations. He has written more than 45 research articles published in national and international Journals. He has organized national and international conference, more specifically the International Conference on Insolvency and Bankruptacy Law jointly with the Insolvency and Bankruptacy Board of India, Ministry of Corporate Affairs, Government of India and Delaware Law School, Delaware, US (2018), the International Conference on Insurance Law and Regulations jointly with the IRDA and New Castle University, Australia (2018), national level moot Court competition jointly with Bar Council of India (2017) . Prof Rao is member of Board of Management of the ICFAI Universities Jaipur, Sikkim, Tripura, Baddi and Dehradun.

Prof Rao attended the Annual meet of Association of American Law Schools, USA (2012) on invitation. He also attended the Asia Pacific Regional Meet of International Association of Law Schools in Shanghai during April 2019 and Annual General Meeting in Poland during the month of September 2019.

Dr. Ananth Padmanabhan

Co-Chair

Dr. Ananth Padmanabhan currently serves as Dean at Daksha Fellowship and as a visiting fellow at the Centre for Policy Research. His research interests are in the fields of technology policy, intellectual property rights, and innovation scholarship. He has authored a leading treatise, Intellectual Property Rights: Infringement and Remedies (LexisNexis, 2012), and co-edited an important volume, India as a Pioneer of Innovation (OUP, 2017).

His co-authored chapter on Big Data in a recent volume on Regulation in India: Design, Capacity, Performance (Hart Publishing, 2019), is part of a continuing initiative to examine the public law and regulatory dimensions of new technologies. It builds on his understanding of the Indian State and the Supreme Court within the constitutional context, explored through chapters in Rethinking Public Institutions in India (OUP, 2017), and the Oxford Handbook of the Indian Constitution (OUP, 2016). He engages in broader public conversations on the impact of technology through his opinion pieces in Hindustan Times, ThePrint, Livemint, Indian Express, and other print / new media.

Ananth holds masters and doctoral degrees from the University of Pennsylvania Law School, and completed his undergrad in law from the National Law School of India University, Bangalore. He practiced law for six years before the Hon'ble Madras High Court, first in the chambers of Arvind P. Datar, Senior Advocate and then as an independent practitioner, before embarking on higher studies and a subsequent journey that led him to set up the technology and policy research vertical at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, New Delhi. In his free time, Ananth loves to engage with regional and world cinema and play the guitar.

Dr. Seema Gupta

Vice Chair

Dr. Seema Gupta is an accomplished academic and currently an Associate Professor at Chandigarh University, Mohali. With over a decade of teaching experience, she has established herself as a prominent figure in legal academia. Dr. Gupta earned her Ph.D. from the Panjab University, Chandigarh, and has held significant academic positions, including Associate Professor at the School of Law, Manav Rachna University, Faridabad, where she continues to contribute as an adjunct faculty member. Her academic journey includes teaching roles at institutions such as the Army Institute of Law, Mohali, and the National Institute of Financial Management, Faridabad, where she refined her expertise in diverse legal and interdisciplinary domains.
Dr. Gupta specializes in Constitutional Law and Intellectual Property Laws, with numerous research publications addressing critical legal issues. Among her notable achievements is her book Reproductive Rights of Women in India, for which Justice U. U. Lalit, the 49th Chief Justice of India, wrote the foreword. Her latest book, Judicial Dissent: A Jurisprudential Analysis & Contemporary Outlook, was published in January 2024, further cementing her reputation as a scholar of repute.

Dr. Ankit Awasthi

Secretary

Dr. Ankit Awasthi is an Assistant Professor of Law (Senior Scale) and the Head of the Centre for WTO & WIPO Studies, SLT at Hidayatullah National Law University (HNLU), Raipur. He serves in multiple key roles at HNLU, including Faculty Coordinator for the Internship and Recruitment Coordination Committee, Alumni Connect, Faculty Advisor for the Kautilya Society @HNLU, established under the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy, New Delhi, and TradeLab@HNLU, a chapter of the Centre for International Trade and Investment Law (CTIL), India.