-

Dr. Namita Wahi is a Senior Fellow at CPR, where she leads the Land Rights Initiative, and a Global Fellow at the Centre for Law and Social Transformation in Bergen. She holds an SJD (doctoral) degree from Harvard Law School, where she wrote her dissertation on “The Right to Property and Economic Development in India”. Namita’s doctoral dissertation traces the historical evolution of the right to property in the Indian Constitution from the colonial period until 1967.
Namita’s research interests are broadly in the areas of property rights, social and economic rights, and eminent domain or expropriation law. She has written extensively on these issues in various academic journals and edited volumes, as well as newspapers and magazines. Namita has taught courses in these areas at Harvard University, both at the Law School and the Department of Government, and at the National University of Juridical Sciences, Kolkata.
Before entering academia, Namita was a litigator with Davis Polk and Wardwell in New York, where she practised primarily in the areas of bankruptcy, securities, criminal defence and asylum law. Namita also holds an LLM from Harvard Law School, where she was awarded the Laylin Prize for the “Best Paper in International Law” and BA and LLB(Hons.) degrees from the National Law School of India University, Bangalore, where she graduated first in her class, and received several gold medals for her academic achievements. ​. She was recently awarded the New India Fellowship for her forthcoming book on the history of the Fundamental Right to Property in the Indian Constitution.

NA

Anisa Draboo is the Co-founder of The Confluence Media, where she leads storytelling and Impact initiatives, including stories on land, climate change, gender and development from Global South. With over two decades of experience in development communication and strategic impact, she has worked with global organizations such as the World Bank, Oxfam and Landesa, shaping narratives that bridge policy, people and media.

Ramesh Sharma serves as the National Coordinator of Ekta Parishad, a mass-based people’s movement for land rights with an active membership of over 250,000 landless poor. Ekta Parishad is widely regarded as one of the largest and most influential people’s movements in India, with an iconic status globally.
As a leading campaigner, Ramesh has been instrumental in planning large-scale mass struggles, campaign strategies, and advocacy initiatives. Over the past 26 years, he has played a pivotal role in strengthening and expanding Ekta Parishad into one of the most significant people’s struggles for land rights in India. He is an active member of several national alliances working on issues related to land reform, farmers’ rights, tribal and Dalit rights, and women’s land rights.
Ramesh has also contributed to public policy through his participation in various land reform committees of the Government of India and state governments. In 2008, he was appointed as a member of the National Committee on Agrarian Crisis and Land Reforms, and in 2012, he was nominated to the National Task Force on Land Reforms (Government of India). In these roles, he has been involved in drafting the National Homestead Rights Act and the National Land Reforms Policy, as well as designing institutional mechanisms for Land Tribunals and other pro-poor legal and institutional reforms. In addition, Ramesh has collaborated with several international and academic institutions, including the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Cambridge University (UK), Heidelberg University (Germany), Rutgers University (USA), and the LBS National Academy of Administration (India). He has authored numerous research papers and policy documents on land rights, peacebuilding, gender justice, agriculture, and environmental issues.Ramesh Sharma is also an active member of several global alliances working on land rights and related development concerns.