In 2019, a library on the internet decided to borrow something from offline libraries. It was metaphor. Instead of menus and sub-menus, this online library has ‘rooms’ and ‘racks’. Today, PARI’s Library boasts of 226 documents in 26 rooms and 73 racks.
Most libraries provide only the citation information of their documents and perhaps, some keywords. But PARI’s Library has this and foci and factoids, which, in 800 words, tell you a document’s thematic focus and list ten to fifteen of its most important facts. This is no less than data journalism.
We are grateful to a small army of 56 volunteers, interns and PARI staffers, who have helped PARI’s Library grow. They have read reports, written foci and factoids, answered editors’ queries, and not asked for anything in return. Some, who have contributed on a regular basis, are below.
Abizar Shaikh
Engineering graduate and management postgraduate from Mumbai, Abizar worked in the financial services for close to three decades. He is now setting up an online business for travel and related products. He also helps his wife market her home cuisine. He is the trustee of an engineering, architecture and design college near Mumbai, which he started with friends from engineering college.
Aditi Chandrasekhar
Aditi is a member of PARI’s core group. She is a freelance content creator and yoga teacher, who currently lives in Montreal, Canada.
Sushmita Iyer
Sushmita is a copy editor and content writer based out of India. She has a BA in Journalism, Public Administration and English and a postgraduate diploma in Broadcast Journalism. She started her career in 2012 and has since worked with various media outlets, including The Times of India and DNA in different capacities. Sushmita has been volunteering with PARI since 2018 and feels that this stint has helped her understand India’s agrarian crisis better. She has worked on reports, research papers and documents that have further piqued her interest in government policies and their impacts on rural India.
Pratik Dixit
Pratik is currently pursuing a BA LLB (Hons.) at the National Law School of India University (NLSIU), Bengaluru. His areas of interest include public law, particularly constitutional law and criminal law.
Keiu Kikas
Keiu is a law student from Estonia. She is currently pursuing a postgraduate degree in International Human Rights Law at the University of Essex, UK. Her areas of interest are gender equality and displacement. Apart from this, she likes documentary films, contemporary fiction and Indian food.
Tarun Gidwani
Tarun has an MA in Poverty and Development from the University of Sussex, UK, and an MA in Philosophy from the University of Tartu, Estonia. His recent academic work on the philosophy of linguistics was published in the journal Philosophia. He is also a freelance writer and contributes to several Estonian publications on contemporary political issues. Tarun is currently working with the fin-tech TransferWise in their compliance team.
Vasundhara Kamath
Vasundhara is a monitoring and evaluation specialist. Her interests include diversity and inclusion in government, particularly gender equity. She studies pathways and programmes related to women’s political participation and increasing their political representation. She also has a PhD in Law, and has taught Constitutional Law, Feminist Jurisprudence and Intellectual Property Law. She loves history, listening to music and reading.
Ragini Rao Munjuluri
Ragini is an undergraduate student of Public Policy and International Studies at FLAME University, Pune. Her interests include development and social policy, and their politics in South Asia. She has been a PARI volunteer since 2018.
Ajay Srinivasmurthy
Ajay is a Bengaluru-based applied scientist at Amazon working on conversational AI for Alexa. He main areas of research include automatic rhythm analysis of Indian classical music, automatic speech recognition and computational musicology. He is also an amateur Carnatic musician, who plays the mridangam.
Vedika Inamdar
Vedika is interested in research for development and dabbling in socio-political theory. She is trying to navigate the world of academic theory and action for change. She has completed her masters from the Institute of Development Studies, UK.
Others who have contributed to the Library are…
Revathi Ram, Tanuj Raut, Rishab Bailey, Divya Jain, Anupam Krishnamurthy, Ritwika Mitra, Tanya Sethi, Swayam Bagaria, Ashvita Singh, Shubha Srishti, Lakshmi Ajikumar, Ananya Singh, Gomathi Sundar, Sara Sohail, Mythili Chandrasekhar, James Joseph, Durga Kale, Neeti Prakash, Mansi Goyal, Mridhula Murali, Harshala Chandraiah, Moumita Das, Anusha Ganapathi, Sanno Srivastava, Sruti Penumetsa, Shreya Bose, Kalyani Vartak, Vaishnavi Rathi, Moumita Sen, Shankhyaneel Sarkar, Vaishnavi Iyer, Nioshi Shah, Imsutula Jamir, Anushka Jain, Guneet Kaur Bedi, Ankitha Rao, Madhuri Chutia, Rounak Bhat, Subuhi Jiwani, Priti David, Vishaka George, Samyukta Shastri, Urja, Oorna Raut, Kanika Gupta and Shraddha Agarwal.
