Announcing the 9th Smitu Kothari Fellows – 2026

The Centre for Financial Accountability (CFA) is delighted to announce the fellows selected for the 9th Smitu Kothari Fellowship for Young Writers and Storytellers.

This year, the fellowship brings together 9 young writers, researchers and visual storytellers from across India to explore the theme “Cities, Finance & the People.” Their work will examine the financial forces shaping India’s rapidly changing cities and ask who benefits from urban development, who bears its costs, and whose voices are left out of the process.

The two-month fellowship will support fellows in developing well-researched investigative articles, photo essays, short documentaries and other forms of multimedia storytelling. Their projects explore diverse questions around urban finance and budgets, housing and displacement, informal livelihoods, urban commons, climate vulnerability, digitalisation, infrastructure failures and the right to the city.

The fellowship builds on CFA’s commitment to supporting young writers and researchers who critically examine how finance affects people, communities and the environment. Inspired by the legacy of environmentalist and scholar-activist Smitu Kothari, the fellowship encourages participants to look beyond conventional narratives of development and investigate the financial and political forces shaping everyday life.

Meet the 2026 Smitu Kothari Fellows

Akhil Surya

Akhil Surya works with the Social Accountability Forum for Action and Research (SAFAR) on public grievance redress in Telangana, social audits, proactive disclosure of public information, and rights of platform workers and domestic workers. Currently pursuing a Post Graduate Diploma in Environmental Studies, his work centers on social accountability, labor rights, urban governance, and social-environmental justice. Akhil’s writings have appeared in The Leaflet, Newsclick, and Andhrajyothi. He actively volunteers with people’s campaigns and grassroots collectives, including the National Alliance of People’s Movements and the Musi Jan Andolan.

A Constitutional Law Gold Medalist from NALSAR University of Law, Akhil will utilise his Smitu Kothari Fellowship to investigate the ecological contradictions and human costs of the Musi Riverfront Development Project in Hyderabad. Through a blend of document analysis and qualitative field research, he will explore the implications of financialization of an urban commons through international debt on the river’s ecology and riparian families.

Ilhak Ahmad Tantray

Ilhak Tantray is an independent journalist who has worked with national and international media platforms. His reporting focuses on climate and environment, social and political issues, and human rights across Kashmir and beyond. He documents how climate change reshapes farming, livelihoods, and traditional crafts. His work centres community voices through in-person reporting, oral histories, and data-driven policy analysis.

As part of the Smitu Kothari Fellowship 2026, Ilhak will investigate how climate and disaster finance reaches, and often fails to reach, Srinagar’s informal workers, including boatmen, street vendors, daily-wage labourers and small shopkeepers. Through ground reporting, budget analysis and RTI responses, his story will examine how disaster spending prioritises infrastructure over livelihood recovery and make a case for more direct and equitable forms of climate finance and social protection.

Nandana Hareesh

Nandana Hareesh is a researcher and a photographer interested in understanding cities through the lenses of caste, identity and belonging. She is a graduate of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) and is currently working as a researcher with the People’s Commission and Public Inquiry Committee while pursuing a Postgraduate Diploma in Photography and Visual Communication at Jamia Millia Islamia. Her research has primarily focused on gender and labour rights, including year-long projects with fisherwomen in Kerala and migrant women garment workers in Bengaluru. She is also a former Urban Fellow at the Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS), where her work centred on questions of housing, infrastructure and urban inequality.

As a Smithu Kothari Fellow she  will be looking into the invisible water economy in Jamia Nagar, examining how, when public infrastructure fails to provide something as basic as water, the city creates its own markets around access. The story foregrounds the water workers whose labour keeps this essential service running, while examining the financial and physical risks they bear.

Nikhil Sanjay-Rekha Adsule

Nikhil is a public policy consultant, economist, and constitutional law expert working at the crucial intersection of legal jurisprudence, fiscal policy, and socio-economic justice. An alumnus of premier institutions, including IIT Delhi, TISS, and NLSIU Bangalore, he currently serves as a Senior Scholar at IIT Delhi. His work centres on democratising constitutional morality, analysing financial federalism, and dismantling systemic inequalities. As a prominent public intellectual and national columnist, he regularly features sharp commentary on legal and economic affairs across top-tier national platforms and leading Marathi dailies. Recognised globally for his contributions, he is a John Dewey Emerging Scholar and a Creighton Peden Scholar in the United States.

As part of the Smitu Kothari Fellowship 2026, Nikhil will investigate the erosion of local democratic governance in Mumbai by examining how urban infrastructure funds are increasingly routed through state-controlled agencies and special-purpose vehicles, bypassing the elected municipal body. His work will explore the implications of this financial centralisation for the 74th Constitutional Amendment, public accountability and spatial justice, particularly for informal workers and other marginalised urban communities.

Sidharth Singh

Sidharth Singh is an instructor at Ashoka University, Sonipat. For the Smitu Kothari Fellowship, he will be studying the interface of NBFCs with the gig economy in Delhi. He will attempt to understand how the ride-sharing sector gains financially only by forcing workers into high interest car loans.

As part of the Smitu Kothari Fellowship 2026, Sidharth will co-write a piece with Ankita Dhar Karmakar examining the growing intersection of microfinance, debt and the gig economy, focusing on how app-based ride-sharing in Delhi is driving working-class drivers towards car loans and indebtedness. Through ground reporting and research, the story will explore the impact of loan repayments on drivers’ livelihoods and the wider implications of this debt-driven model for urban mobility, labour and air pollution.

Shubham Patil

Shubham Patil is a filmmaker and sound designer currently pursuing a Post Graduate Diploma in Cinema at Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute (SRFTI), Kolkata, specialising in Sound Recording & Design. He holds a Master’s in Social Work and has experience working on films, documentaries, and social and environmental issues. His work explores marginalised communities, social realities, and the intersection of people, cities, and ecology.

As part of the Smitu Kothari Fellowship 2026, Shubham will make a documentary exploring the East Kolkata Wetlands as a form of ecological and urban infrastructure, and the often-unrecognised labour of the communities that sustain it. The film will examine the hidden financial relationship between Kolkata’s wastewater systems, wetlands and livelihoods, while questioning who pays for and benefits from these essential ecological services.

Vinod Shende