Founding Trustees

Pingali Rajeswari, Social Practitioner, Andhra Pradesh

Girish Ghansham Sohani, Executive Vice President, BAIF Development Research Foundation, Pune, India

Pingali Parthasarathy, Senior Scientist, ICRISAT, International Crop Research Institute for Semi Arid Tropics), Hyderabad, India

Sarwat Hussain, Senior Communications Officer, The GEF, The World Bank, Washington DC, USA

Pramod Kumar Joshi, South Asia Co-ordinator, IFPRI (International Food Policy Research Institute), Washington DC, USA

Uppaluri Sriram, Financial Controller, Capital Fortunes Limited, Hyderabad.

Short bios:

• Pingali Rajeswari is a social development practioner working working in the area of science, technology and society after working in social research, suicide prevention and emotional crisis intervention for over a decade and half.

  She found several organisations with like minded others including a hotline service for the care of suicidal. She is currently persuing rural development through Villages in Development and Learning Foundation a non-profit organisation she found recently. She is implementing “Computers on Wheels” for people centered development (COW) an ICT project that she found in Stanford Reuters Digital Vision Program, Stanford University as an inagural fellow.

• Girish Ghanashyam Sohani had been working in Working in the BAIF Development Research Foundation (earlier, Bharatiya Agro Industries Foundation) since 1980 on obtaining the Post Graduate Diploma in Business Management from the IIM, Ahmedabad. He has broad based developmental experience and some of the areas of his expertise are in project planning, execution, coordination and facilitation including holistic development concepts. Some of the developmental areas Sohani is involved over the past two decades are farmer managed irrigation schemes, sustainable natural resource management and watershed management, livelihoods, rehabilitation of tribal families and renewable resources and strategic planning for BAIF and associate organizations.

  Currently, he is the Executive Vice President and member of the Board of Trustees of BAIF, Pune, India.

• Pingali Parthasarathy Rao is working in International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), since 1976. Currently, he is a Senior Scientist in the Socio Economics and Policy Program.

  His expertese is in associating with multi-partner and multi disciplinary projects involving national and international institutes.

  Some of the areas of research Parthasarathy Rao was involved in the past five years are resource use efficiency and cropping pattern changes in India, sustainable rainfed agricuture, factors affecting the prodcution and utilisation of Sorghum in India, livestock productivity in mixed crop-livestock systems in South Asia and diversification of agriculture in South Asia.

• Sarwat Hussain is currently Senior Communications Officer at The Global Environmental Facility at the World Bank. Earlier to this posting he worked at the secretariat of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), a strategic alliance supporting a global network of 15 international agricultural research centers that mobilize agricultural and environmental science to reduce poverty, foster human well-being, promote agricultural growth and protect the environment (www.cgiar.org). He received his education in economics and commerce and mass communication and journalism from Osmania University, Hyderabad, India (BCom 1983, BCJ 1986 and MCJ 1987) and completed graduate coursework in media studies at Texas Christian University, Fort Worth (1991-93). In December 2003, he completed an executive development program on “Science, Technology and Innovation Policy” at Harvard University.

  Prior to joining the World Bank in 1993, he held administrative, editorial, and management positions at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), a CGIAR Center located near Hyderabad, India. With over 25 years of professional experience, he is keenly interested in all aspects of sustainable development including rural development, food and environmental science communication, and information and communication technologies for development.

• Dr.P.K. Joshi working in the area of high value agriculture and vertical linkages in South Asian courtiers currently. His expertise is in various areas covering agricultural research, economic issues related to management of watershed programs in dry land agriculture and sustainable agricultural development, socio- economic issues in sustaining productivity in rice-wheat based cropping systems through legumes in the Indo Gangetic Plains. His research experience covers technology policy, diagnostic studies and institutional arrangements in land and water degradation and management.

  He is currently working as South Asia Coordinator in International Food Policy Research Institute, Washington DC.

• Uppaluri Sriram’s experience had been in the area of accounts, taxation and tax regulation. He is currently working as financial controller at Capital Fortunes Limited a financial advisory and consultancy firm in Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh.