Abhishek Yadav is a PhD Candidate at the Centre for South Asian Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi. He was awarded Junior Research Fellowship and Senior Research Fellowship (Political Science) by the University Grants Commission (UGC) of India. Abhishek was a Visiting Fellow in International Relations at the Institute of South Asian Studies, Sichuan University, China. He holds M.Phil. degree in South Asian Studies, a Master of Arts degree in Politics (International Relations) from JNU and a B.A. degree from Hindu College, University of Delhi. He is a core member of the Global Research Forum on Diaspora and Transnationalism (GRFDT). He has served as a Research Associate in the cross-regional project on Migration, Pandemic and Civil Society sponsored by the Queen Mary University of London (QMUL). Previously, he served as a Research Associate at the India Centre for Migration (ICM), Ministry of External Affairs. Presently, he is engaged as a Consultant (Diaspora) in the Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India. As an Advisory Board Member, Abhishek is currently serving as an Editor-in-Chief of The Migration News, a media portal of GRFDT.
Prof. Binod Khadria is presently Distinguished Professor and Director, Centre for New Initiatives and Research, SGT University, Gurugram, Delhi-NCR. He has formerly been a Professor of Economics, Education, and International Migration at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. An experienced University Professor with a demonstrated history of four decades of teaching, research supervision and publishing in the higher education industry, his special fields of expertise are: Economics; Education Policy & Governance Studies; Globalisation, International Trade, Migration & Diaspora Studies. Latest publications: Co-Editor, World Migration Report 2020 (IOM-UN Migration); Sage Handbook of International Migration (London 2019).
Prof. Camelia Tigau is the Coordinator of the Area of Integration Studies at the Center for Research on North America, National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). She previously studied journalism and communication at the University of Bucharest (Romania) and the Schools of Journalism in Utrecht (Holland) and Aarhus (Denmark). She was a visiting researcher at the Baker Institute for Public Policy, Rice University, Texas (2016-7) and the University of York, Canada (2010). She is a member of the Executive Committee of the International Migration Section of the Latin American Studies Association (LASA). Her work includes various publications in Spanish and English on skilled migration, diaspora communication and diplomacy. Her most recent book is Discriminación y privilegios de la migración calificada: el caso de los profesionistas mexicanos en Texas (Discrimination and Privileges of Skilled Migration: the Case of Mexican Professionals in Texas), 2020, CISAN – UNAM.
Dr Divya Balan is Assistant Professor in the Department of Social Sciences at FLAME University, Pune, India. She teaches courses on Migration and Diaspora, and Forced Migration, Refugees and Human Security in FLAME. Dr Divya has authored several timely opinion pieces for national and regional newspapers and magazines, including for the New Indian Express, the Wire, Times of India, Telangana Today and Truecopy Think on issues related to international, internal and forced migration, migration governance, Indian diaspora, migrant transnationalism and identity, and global Malayalees. She is also the author of monographs, articles in research journals, and chapters in edited books on themes related to migration and refugees.
Dr. Feroz Khan Gulsher Khan is a Gold Medalist in M.A. from Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU). He did his PhD in Interdisciplinary and Trans-disciplinary Studies from IGNOU on ‘Employment and Labour Issues’ in the Organised Retail Sector. Presently, he is a Research Associate at the Institute for Research & Development in School Education (IRDSE). Dr. Khan has worked as a Research Associate with V. V. Giri National Labour Institute, Noida on different labour issues like ‘Workers in Small Scale Industries’ and ‘Child Labour.’ He has also worked as a Research Officer with the Indian Institute of Public Administration (IIPA), New Delhi. He is a member of The Global Research Forum on Diaspora and Transnationalism (GRFDT), an Academic and Policy think tank based in New Delhi.
Ismail Einashe is a journalist and writer covering migration and human rights. He has written for The Guardian, BBC, The Sunday Times and Foreign Policy, among many others. Currently, he is a Senior Journalist at Lost in Europe, a project investigating the disappearance of child migrants in Europe. Last year, he was an Alicia Patterson Foundation Fellow where he reported on China’s role in Africa, focusing on Kenya, Ethiopia, Tanzania and Zambia. Einashe was shortlisted for the European Press Prize 2020. He was awarded a Migration Media Award in 2019. Einashe co-edited the book Lost in Media: Migrant Perspectives and the Public Sphere, a collection of essays on the representations of migrants and refugees in the European media. He lives in London.
Dr. Mahalingam M is currently Associate Professor of History and Sociology at Faculty Of Law, SGT University, Gurugram, Delhi-NCR. He is now the president of Global Research Forum On Diaspora and Transnationalism( GRFDT). He has published articles and monographs on international migration and global Diasporas to his credit. His research interests include International migration, multiculturalism and Sociology of Indian Diaspora. He comments on contemporary political socio- economic issues in the Indian mass media.
Dr. Monika Bisht Ranjan is an Executive Committee member of the Global Research Forum on Diaspora and Transnationalism, an international research consortium on international migration and Diaspora. She has completed her M.Phil. and PhD from the National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration, New Delhi. Her interest includes migration, diaspora, media.
Paddy Siyanga Knudsen is a Zambian national, and holds a MSc Financial Economics from SOAS and BSc Development & Economics from LSE. She is a Migration Governance Analyst (a Development Economist by profession) with over 17 years of experience in governance, regional integration and specifically working on migration and financing for sustainable development. She has worked for the various International Organisations (including IOM and the European Union) supporting governments, regional organisations and CSOs in various countries such as China, Malaysia, Zambia, The Gambia, Tanzania as well as in East and Southern Africa. As a member of GRFDT advisory and editorial committees, she provides support on projects and initiatives related to migration and development as well as diaspora engagement.
Dr. Pedro Oiarzabal is the Social Innovation Research Director at Arima Social Social Lab, Bilbao, Basque Country, Spain, aimed at addressing social issues and working closely with organisations on projects with a social impact. For two decades, his work has focused on research and consulting on public policies (citizenship abroad and return), diasporas and new technologies, and social and historical memory (oral history, migration and exile), with special emphasis on the Basque case.
Dr Rakesh Ranjan is a founding member of the Global Research Forum on Diaspora and Transnationalism. Currently, he is working as an Assistant Professor with Centre for Development Practice and Research, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, India. His research interests include International Labour Migration, Remittances, Diaspora and Immigrant Entrepreneurship.
Rejimon Kuttappan is an independent journalist currently based in India with more than a decade-long experience in reporting migrant stories in the Arab Gulf. He was the chief reporter with an English daily in Oman for a decade. He was deported from Oman for exposing the human trafficking of South Asian women domestic workers in 2017 April through his exclusive news story of human trafficking. Currently, he writes for The Lede regularly and also freelances for Thomson Reuters Foundation, The Hindu, Caravan Magazine, Middle East Eye, Equal Times, Migrants Rights, The Lede, and many other publishers. He has done one fellowship with International Labour Organisation on labour migration and one with Thomson Reuters Foundation on forced labour and human trafficking. He was in the Panos Network team that prepared the ILO toolkit on Reporting Migration and also was a Board Advisor with Ethical Journalism Network. He has worked on several research papers on migration with Migrant Forum in Asia (MFA). He has co-authored a book on labour migration brought out by ILO-SDC-Panos titled Uncertain Journeys on migrant workers in 2018. In 2019, he authored a book for Speaking Tiger on the bravery of Keralite fishermen who rescued thousands from the 2018 floods in Kerala titled Rowing Between Rooftops: The Heroic Fishermen of Kerala Floods. For the last decade, he has been a regular attendee in several regional and global meetings on migration and also is a co-founder of an SOS app titled MigCall for Indian migrant workers in the Arab Gulf.
Dr. Ruchi Singh is an Assistant Professor (Research) in Prin. L.N. Welingkar Institute of Management Development and Research, Bengaluru, India. She has done her Masters in Economics from BHU, Varanasi, M.Phil from IIT Bombay and Ph.D from Central University of Hyderabad. She has been awarded UGC-Junior and Senior Research Fellowship during her Ph.D. She has presented many papers on migration in various national and international forums including prestigious Oxford University. She has also been part of various organisizing team and chaired various sessions in international conferenes and workshops. She has also carried out various minor and major research projects in the field of migration with CDS Kerala and BWI, Switzerland. She has also published numerous papers in various journals of good repute and has also authored many chapters in an edited books published by renowned publishers. She has also been granted ICSSR-IMPRESS major research project on “Rural Urban migration and Its Implications: A Study in Three States of India” of 1.5 Million INR. She also has been invited many times as a resource person at various prestigious institutes and government meetings to deliver sessions on migration and related field. She is editor in an scopus indexed international journal “Remittances Review” and is reviewer in scopus and web of science indexed internatioal journal “Migration Letters”. She has reviewed papers for various journals across world such as Border Crossing, Child Development and Review etc.
Dr. Sadananda Sahoo is a sociologist, at present working as Assistant Professor (Senior grade) at the School of Inter-disciplinary and Trans-disciplinary Studies (SOITS), Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), New Delhi. He did his PhD at the Central University of Hyderabad on the role and contribution of diasporas to home country development, especially in the healthcare sector. Before joining IGNOU he worked National Institute of Labour Economics Research and Development (Formerly Institute of Applied Manpower Research), (An Autonomous Institute under NITI Aayog, Government of India). Dr. Sahoo has more than 20 publications and reviews on diaspora and ethnic studies, international migration, public policy, and rural development, among others. He has co-edited book titled “Global Diasporas:Socioeconomic, Cultural and Policy Perspectives” published by Springer (2014). He is also the Co-editor of the peer reviewed journal Migration and Diasporas: An Interdisciplinary Journal.
Dr. Smita Tiwary is a founding member of GRFDT (Global Research Forum on Diaspora and Transnationalism). Currently, she is teaching in University of Delhi and taking courses on foreign policy and comparative politics. Earlier, she was a Research Fellow at the Indian Council of World Affairs, New Delhi and worked there for nearly six years dealing with issues of foreign policies, security studies and international migration. Before joining ICWA, she taught collectively two and half years in University of Delhi and Jamia Millia Islamia, taking courses on various issues of India’s foreign policy and South Asia. She has been part of many research projects and has several publications to her credit. Dr. Tiwary has received her PhD from South Asian Studies Division, School of International Studies, JNU. She has also qualified Junior Research Fellowship (JRF) and Senior Research Fellowship (SRF) conducted by the UGC. Her research interests include: India’s Foreign and Neighbourhood Policies, Indian Diaspora, South Asian diaspora and, International Migration and Development etc.
Dr. Vijay Kumar Soni is a journalist working with Open magazine as Associate Editor (Web). Prior to this, he has worked with various other media organisations including India Today, The Times of India, Hindustan Times and Thomas international. His research interest areas are media and diaspora studies and political communication. His thesis “New media and homeland electoral politics: A study of post-independence Indian diaspora” throws light on the increasing role of non-voting diaspora in Federal and state assembly elections and in internationalising the homeland issues in their host countries. A UGC NET researcher, he has several peer-reviewed articles published in national and international journals. A post-graduate in English Literature (Gold Medalist) and Journalism and Mass Communication, he has been invited to deliver lectures at the premium media institutes including Indian Institute of Mass Communication. He has presented papers in various national and international conferences and contributed to the scholarly book “Development, Governance and Gender in South Asia: Perspectives, Issues and Challenges” published by Springer (2021). He can be reached at veejay.soni@gmail.com.