Centre for Financial Accountability (CFA) is happy to announce recipients of the 7th Smitu Kothari Fellowship for young writers. The 6 recipients for 2024 come from diverse backgrounds and experiences, and hail from different parts of the country across the length and breadth of the nation. The two-month fellowship gives an opportunity to young people for a deep-dive into some of the topics they are passionate about and publish. The fellowship encourages young writers to critically look at the world of development finance beyond lending. This year’s fellows will work on a variety of topics, including Blue Economy Destruction, Economic and Financial Implications of the Recent Wakf Board Bill, Climate Financing – Gender and Microcredit, Climate Migration and the financial gaps in India’s fiscal policy, Infrastructuring injustices in the transitions towards ‘blue growth’ and Shrinking of public pasture land and its economic implications on the community.
The fellows are mentored by Rakesh Dewan, editor of Sarvodaya Press Service, Jimmy James, senior journalist from Kerala and assisted by the experts at CFA. The fellowship is instituted in the name of Smitu Kothari who was a distinguished environmentalist and scholar-activist and was involved in ecological, cultural and human rights issues.
The fellows for this year are:
Akhila Kumaran (she/her) is currently a PhD candidate in Inclusive Development and Social Justice at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) in Mumbai. Her research focuses on fisheries governance in Kerala. She holds an MPhil in Inclusive Development from TISS, as well as an MA in Applied Economics. Previously, Akhila has worked with the ICAR-Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (CMFRI) in Kochi, contributing to research on the impact of COVID-19 on marine fisher communities in India. Her research interests include the political economy of development, gender and environment with special focus on Kerala.
As part of the Smitu Kothari Fellowship, her research will explore the intersections of gender, climate resilience, and financial mechanisms within Kerala’s coastal communities, examining the microcredit program Theeramythri Project and its potential to empower women in marine fisheries to adapt to climate-induced challenges.
Evita is a public policy professional working at the intersection of cities and climate change with Transitions Research, which conducts policy and action research on sustainable transition pathways for India. A former legislative researcher and constituency-based associate, Evita worked on drafting India’s first Climate Migration Bill, through private member legislation, in the backdrop of evictions in Assam spurred by displacement due to riverine erosion. With a degree in Political Science and Economics from St. Stephen’s College, she is deeply invested in the intersections of politics, socio-economics, and environmental sustainability, keen on enhancing governance systems to better serve communities.
In the fellowship Evita will examine the financial gaps in India’s national budget for managing climate-induced displacement, highlighting the absence of dedicated funding for displaced communities.
Nabanita Samanta is a doctoral researcher in sociology/social anthropology at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay. With a distinctive leaning for transdisciplinary research, she locates her research-interests at the intra-section of ecology, society, and the self (broadly conceived). Her research engagements span across the transdisciplinary fields of political ecology and ecological anthropology, critical ocean studies, anthropology of infrastructure, and resistance studies. Nabanita is the recipient of the British Council SGSAH EARTH Scholarship (2024) for which she was recently hosted at the University of Edinburgh as a visiting researcher.
For the Smitu Kothari fellowship, Nabanita will delve into the contemporary politics of globalized and corporatized port-making which has gathered steam as one of mainstays for the proliferating regime of ‘blue growth’.
Nabeel Ahmad is an independent researcher and writer, and holds a Master’s degree in Library and Information Science from Aligarh Muslim University and an undergraduate in Banking and Finance from Lucknow University. He delves into and writes about historical and socio-political issues concerning Muslim minorities in India. He has worked in the project of ICSSR-IMPRESS and has written on Muslim identity, assertiveness, and epistemicide.
As part of the Smitu Kothari Fellowship, Nabeel will be writing about the ‘Economic and Financial Implications of the Waqf (Amendment) Bill, 2024’.
Pradeep Elangovan is an independent journalist and researcher, consistently documenting the lives and cultures of Dalits and indigenous peoples, with a focus on their rights over brackish water ecosystems in coastal Tamil Nadu.
He has published several articles related to climate change, migration, traditional practices, and ecological devastation, particularly in the context of industrial aquaculture. A geology graduate with a strong interest in GIS and remote sensing, he has spent the past few years contributing to community mapping through his cartographic evidences (maps).
As part of the Smitu Kothari Fellowship, Pradeep will be writing about the ‘Blue Economy Destruction: Disguised as Coastal Restoration A Case of the World Bank’s Tamil Nadu SHORE Coastal Restoration Mission, India’.
Raj Shekhar is an activist-researcher from Azamgarh, Uttar Pradesh. He has worked with the people-led Right to Food Campaign as National Coordinator and has worked with various other movements focusing on rights such as work, wages, health and so on. Currently he is studying the changes in the lives of communities in his hometown in Azamgarh, Uttar Pradesh due to the land acquisition done for the Purvanchal Expressway.
As part of the Smitu Kothari Fellowship, Raj Shekhar will be highlighting the challenges faced by women cattle herders near Purvanchal Expressway in Azamgarh.
The works of Smitu Kothari Fellows 2023 can be read here.
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