Vice Chairperson
Mr. K.M. Chandrasekhar worked in the Indian Administrative Service from 1970 to 2011. During the last four years of his career, he held the apex position of Union Cabinet Secretary, reporting directly to Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh. After his retirement in 2011, he was the Vice Chairman of the State Planning Board, till 2016.
He has varied experience, particularly in public finance, industry, agriculture, fisheries, international trade and diplomacy and has been Revenue Secretary in the Ministry of Finance, Government of India, and Finance Secretary in his State Government. He has diplomatic and negotiating experience as Indian Ambassador to the World Trade Organisation, Geneva, and as Deputy Chief of Mission, Embassy of India, Brussels, dealing with the European Union, Belgium and Luxembourg.
He has been at various times Chairman, Managing Director or Director of about 50 companies in the public, private, joint and cooperative sector. He was on the Boards of ten large private companies. He has been Chairman of the Federal Bank, President of the Sri Chithra Institute of Medical Sciences and Technology, Thiruvananthapuram and has chaired in an elected capacity, at the Centre for Development Studies, Thiruvananthapuram, affiliated to the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He is also Distinguished Fellow of the Gulati Institute of Finance and Taxation, Member of the Council of Management of the National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bengaluru and Honorary Adviser to the AryaVaidyaSala, Kottakkal. He recently resigned from the position of Independent Director of KIMS HEALTH Hospital, Thiruvananthapuram.
He has written and published extensively in various newspapers and magazines, including the Times of India, Indian Express, the Hindustan Times, the Economic Times, the Financial Express, the Business Standard, the Print, the Wire, the Week and others. His memoirs, “As Good as My Word”, was published by Harper Collins (India) in December 2023. He has jointly edited “The Kerala Club” published by Bloomsbury (India) earlier this year.
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G. Vijaya Raghavan is a technocrat and institution builder with more than four decades of experience spanning technology, education, healthcare and social development. As the founding CEO of Technopark, Thiruvananthapuram, he helped establish Kerala’s IT ecosystem. He also played a key role in founding institutions such as NISH, Trivandrum International School, Asian School of Business and CADRRE. A former member of the Kerala State Planning Board, he continues to advance initiatives focused on economic development, employment generation, innovation and social inclusion.
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ENVIRONMENTALIST | POLICY ADVOCATE | AGROECOLOGY & CLIMATE ACTION
Sridhar Radhakrishnan is an environmentalist, researcher and public policy advocate with nearly three decades of experience in environmental justice, agroecology, climate action, land use, food and seed sovereignty, and democratic governance. Trained as a computer engineer, he moved into full-time environmental work in 1997 after serving at NTPC and the Institute of Human Resources Development. From 1997 to 2019, he held several leadership roles at Thanal, including Programme Director, and coordinated the multi-state Save Our Rice Campaign. He is a founding member of ASHA-Kisan Swaraj and a founding member and former National Coordinator of the Coalition for a GM-Free India.
His policy contributions include Kerala’s Organic Farming Policy and draft Land Policy, participation in the agriculture and environment subcommittees of the Kerala State Planning Board, and the expert committee on land use policy at the Tamil Nadu State Development Policy Council. In 2026, he chaired the drafting committee for From Forest to Sea: Kerala People’s Environmental Charter and served as environmental expert on the Government of Kerala committee reviewing the proposed high-speed rail project. His early research examined the impact of industrial extraction on Kerala’s forests and was published as Grasim Since 1963: The Burden on Our Heads. As Principal Researcher with the Kerala Research Programme on Local Level Development at the Centre for Development Studies, he led studies on industrial–local linkages and zero-waste livelihoods involving women’s self-help groups, and has served as a civil-society observer at the UN Rotterdam Convention on hazardous chemicals and pesticides.
He currently serves in leadership and advisory roles with ASHA-Kisan Swaraj, Thirunelly Agri Producer Company, Agroecology Fund, Bharat Agroecology Fund and GRAIN. He writes regularly in English and Malayalam and has authored or contributed to publications including Cleaning Up Kerala: Studies in Self-Help in Dealing with Solid Waste and A Green Print for Sustainable Kerala: Lessons for Existence.
Member
Varun Santhosh is a policy analyst and strategic advisor to state governments and companies, working across political economy, institutional design and communications for over 15 years.
Until January 2024 he was a senior staffer to the Chairman of Parliament’s Standing Committee on Science and Technology, Environment, Forests and Climate Change. He drafted and edited Committee reports on the expansion of cancer care, DNA technology regulation and wildlife protection. Across four Union Budgets from 2020-21, he analysed the Demands for Grants of seven ministries and departments.
He has been associated with the Indian National Congress for over a decade. For the 2024 general election he served as Vice Chairman of the Organisational War Room, and contributed to the drafting of the national manifestos of 2024 and 2019. He was a core team member of the Bharat Jodo Yatra. In June 2021 he was a key contributor to the party’s White Paper on the Union government’s management of COVID-19. He edited and led the research team behind ‘The Real State of the Economy’ report, released by Dr Manmohan Singh in January 2017. In 2014 he helped set up the party’s parliamentary research wing.
His start in the public sphere was in civic activism in Bengaluru and field research in the Western Ghats. In 2010 he studied the impact of tourism in forest areas, contributing to the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel chaired by Dr Madhav Gadgil. He began his career as a business analyst at HSBC in 2008, and was selected for the bank’s International Climate Champion Programme.
He has contributed book chapters and research papers on India’s election law and public funding of elections, and writes in the national press. He has lectured and spoken at the University of California, Berkeley, Georgetown University, Ashoka University and the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad. He holds a B.Tech in metallurgical and materials engineering from the National Institute of Technology Karnataka, Surathkal.
Member
Dr. P. P. Balan is a distinguished scholar and practitioner with extensive experience in decentralisation, Panchayati Raj, local governance, rural development and public policy. He served as Senior Consultant, Ministry of Panchayati Raj, Government of India, New Delhi.
Dr. Balan holds a PhD in Gandhian Movement and was the recipient of the Mahatma Gandhi International Award for Peace and Reconciliation (2020), instituted by the Gandhi Development Trust, Durban, South Africa.
He served as Director of the Kerala Institute of Local Administration (KILA) for 11 years, contributing significantly to capacity building, institutional strengthening and the advancement of decentralised governance in Kerala. His engagement with local governance began at the grassroots level as President of Chapparapadavu Grama Panchayat, Kannur, Kerala, which was adjudged as one of the best Panchayats by the Government of Kerala.
Prior to and alongside his work in Kerala, Dr. Balan held the position of Professor-cum-Director at the Centre for Research in Rural and Industrial Development (CRRID), Chandigarh. In this capacity, he worked extensively on strengthening Panchayati Raj Institutions in North Indian States, particularly in Jammu & Kashmir, Haryana, Punjab, Chandigarh, and Himachal Pradesh.
His expertise has also been sought internationally. He has served as an Adviser to the Local Government Departments of Bhutan and Sri Lanka, contributing to initiatives related to decentralisation and local governance.
Dr. Balan has authored and contributed to several publications in English and Malayalam on local governance, decentralisation and rural development. His recent Malayalam book, Munpe Nadakkunna Keralam (Kerala Walks Ahead), published by the Kerala Bhasha Institute, draws on his professional experiences and observations on decentralisation and local governance across 40 countries.
With extensive experience spanning grassroots governance, academic research, institutional development, public policy and international advisory assignments, Dr. Balan brings a broad and practical perspective to the policy and practice of decentralised planning and governance.
