Asiya Shervani is a change management, organizational ethics, diversity, inclusion and leadership development expert who consults with nonprofits, educational institutions, government departments, start-ups, entrepreneurs, small/medium Indian enterprises as well as creative professionals, sportspersons and performing artists. She designs and facilitates customized workshops on the legal, ethical and psychological aspects of harassment, sexual harassment and power dynamics in structured as well as unstructured workplaces and formal/semi-formal educational institutions, studios, coaching centers and collectives. Asiya is part of a core committee of WCC (Women in Cinema Collective) working on gender equity, parity and safety related best practices for the southern Indian film industry. She is supporting the classical and performing artists to build strategies and methodologies to improve equity and representation on stage as well as behind the stage. She is the external member on several committees which investigate sexual misconduct, harassment as well as everyday sexism and incivilities. Asiya has a Master’s degree in the social sciences and can be contacted at asiya.shervani@gmail.com
Born and raised in a family of medical professionals in Kolkata, India, Urmi Basu completed her Masters in Social Work at the prestigious Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. After fifteen years of professional work Urmi set up a small non-profit named New Light inKolkata in 2000 with a seed money as little as Rs 10,000 along with two other young people from the Kalighat red light district. The mission of the organization is to promote gender equality and fight violence and abuse of women, girl children and young people. The organization works to fight against child prostitution and trafficking for the purpose of sex- trade, child labour and bonded labour. Urmi has been a part of targeted intervention programs for victims of HIV/AIDS, trans-sexual and trans-gender people.She lives in Kolkata, India and fights for social justice for the marginalized community every day of her life. In her own words her greatest moment of joy was when she was chosen as a recipient of a blessing from His Holiness The Dalai Lama under the title Unsung heroes of Compassion 2009 on the 26th of April 2009 in San Francisco for her work that promotes compassion and peace. In 2019 Ms. Urmi Basu received the prestigious Nari Shakti Puraskar from His Excellency the President of India through the Ministry of Women and Child Development, GOI, in recognition of New Light Kolkata’s contribution to women’s empowerment on the occasion of International Women’s Day.
Paramita is a performer, contemporary dancer, curator, and arts manager working out of Kolkata. Paramita has more than 20 years of contemporary dance training and representation across 18 countries with Sapphire Creations Dance Company where she was Repertory member, Co-Director for 24 years. She is currently Co-Director of Artsforward. Paramita works with artists and the creative community to build moving messages for social change for the present generation. She is deeply engaged in the field of environment, e-waste management, audience development for the arts, nurturing and supporting creativity and artistic ability in the youth, curating, and designing creative art projects. She is an ArtThinkSouthAsia 2016 Fellow and a Global Fellow of International Society of Performing Arts 2018 and 2021. During Covid Times her Instagram initiative ArtAloneTogether recorded artistic expressions from artists and art lovers around the world through various creative prompts called Lockdown Weekends, ArtAloneTogether has since then developed into India’s first and only am-pm, mixed arts online festival featuring artists across disciplines and borders. Paramita has conducted and delivered more than 1000 art events across India since 2002.
Dr. Shameek Sen is an Assistant Professor in the West Bengal National University of Juridical
Sciences, Kolkata, India. He specializes in Public Law disciplines like Constitutional Law and
Media Law. After graduating from the NUJS in 2005 as a part of the very first graduating batch
of the University and finishing his LL.M. in 2007 (where he won the prestigious Nani Palkivala
Gold Medal for securing the highest marks in his batch), Sen joined as an Assistant Professor in
NUJS. He completed his M.Phil. in the year 2008 and Ph.D. in the year 2016. His Ph.D. thesis is
titled “Free Speech and Censorship, with special reference to the Law of Obscenity”.
Sen has several publications as books, book chapters and articles in peer-reviewed journals. He
has also presented several papers in international conferences and symposia. He currently
holds the position of Coordinator at the Centre for Studies in Entertainment and Media Law at
WBNUJS, Kolkata.
Somabha Bandopadhay is a doctoral student and University Junior Research Fellow at The West Bengal National University for Juridical Sciences (WBNUJS), Kolkata
She pursued BA.LLB (International Law Honors) from School of Law, KIIT University, Bhubaneswar and pursued LLM (Human Rights) National Law School of India University (NLSIU), Bangalore. She has been a scholarship holder at KIIT University. She was awarded the Nani Palkhivala Memorial Gold Medal at NLSIU Bangalore for securing the highest in LLM (Human Rights) and the Chancellor’s Gold Medal and Nanibala Devi Memorial Gold Medal for topping the School of Law, KIIT University in 2018. Recently, Somabha has been awarded the Indo-Canadian Shastri Scholarship to pursue research on victimization of transgender persons and is preparing to undertake the comparative research soon.
Somabha won the prestigious Bar Council of India Inter-University Moot Court competition in 2017 and was adjudged as the Best speaker as well as the Best Female Advocate that ensured her a scholarship from the Council for a year.
She is presently pursuing a research on Glyphosate and Rights of Nature in collaboration with Earth Thrive, United Kingdom and another with WBNUJS, Kolkata on Transgender trauma and stigma. She is a member of the GARN Youth Hub, Ecuador and World Youths for Climate Justice and is passionately working on Rights of Nature.
Dr. Arshiya Sethi, twice a Fulbright Fellow, has been working in the arts in leadership positions for over four decades. In 2003 she set up Kri Foundation with the avowed purpose of promoting the Arts and its intersections with social issues. An institution builder in the arts, she has been Creative Head (Programmes) at India Habitat Centre and has been a consultant with United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime where she worked on projects associated with children, adolescents, women and human trafficking and gained in Training experience and expertise. Since then, she has worked on issues of gender, social defence and ethics with groups as varied as artistes, students, women’s groups, youth leaders, school educators, Government Protection officers, Jail staff and the police. She has mentored many young people and is the founder Trustee of the YP Foundation and its present Chair. Arts and the Law is her current focus area.
Prof. (Dr.) Kavita Singh is Professor in WBNUJS, Kolkata in into research and teaching for more than 18 years, before joining NUJS in 2004 she has taught at the Dept. of Law, University of North Bengal (2002-2004) and S.K. Acharaya Institute of Law, Kalyani University (2004) as lecturer among other places. She has obtained her LLB, LLM degree from University of North Bengal and she qualified UGC NET in 2003. She was awarded Ph.D in 2008 and her Ph. D Thesis titled “Anti - Terrorism Law and its Impact on Human Rights in India: A Critical Appraisal”. Her LLM Dissertation titled, Custodial Violence and Emerging Trend of Custody Jurisprudence in India (2002). She has worked in various research projects nationally and internationally and is widely published in books and journals of repute. She has presented several papers in the international and national conferences.She holds various positions in NUJS including Member of the Academic Council of WBNUJS (2010-2012). She is presently member of Doctoral Committee, member of Faculty Advisory Committee, member of Quality Control Cell of WBNUJS, member of All India Law Teachers Congress, member of Post- Graduate Council, member of Staff Welfare Committee and member of the legal aid society. Prof. Singh’s research interests include Criminal Law, Criminology & Victimology, International Taxation and Family Law
Dr. Shouvik Kumar Guha is currently working as an Assistant Professor of Law (Senior Scale) at The West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences since 2014. He has obtained his B.A., LLB. (Hons.) and LL.M. (gold medallist) degrees from NUJS in 2010 and 2013 respectively, and has also completed his Ph.D. (Technology Transfer: An Interface between Intellectual Property and Antitrust Laws) from the same institution. He is also the Joint Director of the Centre for Financial and Regulatory Governance Studies, and the Centre for Competition Laws, the Founding Director of the Centre for Law, Literature and Popular Culture, the Associate Director of the Centre for Aviation and Space Laws, and the Assistant Director of the Centre for Law and Technology, at NUJS. He has also served (2012-2014) as the Director (Operations) of Increasing Diversity by Increasing Access to Legal Education (IDIA), an organisation with pan-Indian presence devoted towards making legal education more accessible to the underprivileged. In addition, he also has the distinction of being a TEDx Speaker, a member of the global forum of Sustainable Market Actors for Responsible Trade (SMART), a registered member of the Independent Director’s Data Bank maintained by the IICA, and a member of the Network of Indian Competition Experts- Cartel Working Group (NICE-CWG) created by the Competition Commission of India. Guha has also served as the co-Investigator for research projects involving competition assessment of several legislations, commissioned by the Competition Commission of India, and a major research project on Judicial Trend in Case relating to Cyber Crime with Special References to West Bengal, funded by the West Bengal Judicial Academy. He is also a part of several ongoing interdisciplinary research projects involving the application of artificial intelligence in legal domain with researchers from IIT Kharagpur, IIT Kanpur and IIM Ranchi, the interface between law and psychology with researchers from Christ University, a joint research project involving use of artificial intelligence to address consumer protection issues with researchers from Daksh and IIT Delhi, to name a few. He has also been associated with several leading law journals in India as Managing Editor, editor and senior associate member, He has also acted as legal analyzer for Spicy IP, a premier academic web-blog on Intellectual Property Law in India. He also has till date to his credit about seventy publications including book chapters, conference papers and articles published in journals of international and national repute.
Dr. Arvinder J. Singh is a psychologist and psychotherapist A consultant to the UN She is currently the founder director of Ashoka Centre for Well being at Ashoka University and guest faculty at IIMA. A Mental Health practitione, rshe has been educated and trained in India and abroad (U.K.) and works on building healing spaces through listening and sharing stories. She is also the founder of an initiative called Listening circles and Healing spaces that builds on this aspect of her work. An important part of her professional journey has been her work with traumatised populations in politically sensitive zones in India (Gujarat , Kashmir and the north eastern states) , Afghan refugees and people affected by disasters such as earthquakes in India, Pakistan and Nepal where she led Mission Psychosocial support. She is also a Guest Faculty at IIM-Ahmedabad with the strategic leadership program.