Members
Vibodh Parthasarathi
Vibodh Parthasarathi maintains a multidisciplinary interest in the creative industries, cross-national communication policy, business history of the media and governance of media infrastructure. Currently at the Centre for Culture, Media & Governance, Jamia Millia Islamia, he has held positions at the Centre for Jawaharlal Nehru Studies, also at Jamia, Centre for Co-operative Research in Social Sciences, and Manipal Institute of Communication. He is the co-editor of L’idiot du Village Mondial (Editions Luc Pire/ECLM, 2004), Media and Mediation (Sage, 2005) and The Social and the Symbolic (Sage, 2007). His work has attracted support variously from the India Foundation for the Arts, Netherlands Fellowship Programme, Charles Leopold Mayer Foundation, Prince Klaus Fund, Charles Wallace India Trust and Commonwealth Fund for Technical Co-operation. Periodically on assignments in business development and television production with the media industry, his last documentary Crosscurrents: A Fijian Travelogue (2001) explored the underbelly of ‘reconciliation’ following a decade of military coups in Fiji. Vibodh’s nominations include Non Executive Director, Kadam Films Ltd. (New Delhi); Independent Director, Centre for Social Ecology (Jaipur); Founding International Member, Intercultural Library for the Future (Paris); Associate, South Asian Poverty Network Association (Colombo); and, Member, Academic Council, Institute of Social Studies (The Hague).
Atul Ramachandra
Atul Ramachandra has a background in New Media having worked for 8 years with Explocity, a News Corp company, joining them at the set-up of their expansion with VC funding, looking after operations, budget control, management and selection of technology and technology providers with an accent on open source platforms. He completed his stint at Explocity as VP - Digital, having been in charge of developing new digital media products for the Internet and Mobile phones.
He is currently Project Director setting up a self-sustaining news and information service on mobile phones, for the urban slums of Kolkata. The project is funded by the European Commission through a grant to Internews Europe, a non-profit International news agency. Prior to this, he has over a decade of experience in the solar and renewable energy sector and has worked on product development and technical marketing. A graduate in applied physics (5 year MS) from IIT Delhi (1981), Atul specialised in Solar Energy and he has 3 years of post-graduate work at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, USA. His interests are product development and innovation, new trends in technology and web enabling of products and services. He continues to be interested in the area of new and renewable energy sources and new applications powered by them and technology for the supply of potable water powered by solar energy.
Achal Prabhala
Achal Prabhala is a writer and researcher based in Bangalore. He works primarily on intellectual property; previously, he worked in media, mainly in television and print. From 2004-2006, he coordinated the Access to Learning Materials Project in Southern Africa from Johannesburg. He works on aspects of patent and copyright systems, in relation to access to medicines and access to knowledge. Some representative publications by him include Battling HIV/AIDS – A Decision Maker's Guide to the Procurement of Medicines and Related Supplies, Intellectual Property, Education and Access to Knowledge in Southern Africa, Response to Indian Copyright Law Amendment, and Reconsidering the Pirate Nation: Notes from South Africa and India.
