Volume I – Culture & Heritage

Archana Saad Akhtar

Senior Programme Officer, Design & Outreach, Humayun’s Tomb – Sunder Nursery – Nizamuddin Basti Urban Renewal Initiative, AGA KHAN TRUST FOR CULTURE : An agency of the Aga Khan Development Network

Trained as an architect, Archana Saad Akhtar specializes as a New Media Designer from the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad. Her interest in historic monuments was fueled during architecture days. Her passion led her to places like an architectural internship at INTACH, New Delhi, where she was fortunate enough to travel to Ladakh to study the architecture of over 1000 year old Buddhist monasteries, a heritage village Pragpur in Himachal Pradesh thus, studying traditional residential architecture dating back to over 200-300 year old mansions, many of which were sadly abandoned by its owners for city life. Currently, she works with the Aga Khan Trust for Culture and have been an integral part of the team working on the curation of Humayun’ Tomb Site Museum in the historic Nizamuddin. Humayun’s tomb is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, having a heritage park called Sunder Nursery, and a 700-year old historic settlement of Hazrat Nizamuddin Basti.

Prof. David Baine

Professor Emeritus, Educational Psychology, University of Alberta, Canada

Prof. Baine is a cross cultural psychologist in education: assessment, curriculum, instruction & behavior management. His work is focused primarily on developing Community-Referenced Curricula for people in rural areas of developing countries. He recently published a text/ reference book on developing Community Referenced Curricula for the marginalized communities.

Dr. Bharti Kaushik

Associate Professor, DGESN, NCERT, India

Dr. Bharti is a thesaurus of knowledge and has a multidisciplinary approach towards life. She is diversity & inclusion enthusiast and works at towards inclusion of Children with Special Needs in the mainstream education system.  

Dr. Achla Pritam Tandon

Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, Hindu College, University of Delhi, India

Dr. Tandon works in the research areas media, gender and social inequalities. She has a rich experience of teaching for more than 25 years. An alumni of Jawaharlal Nehru University, and an Honorary Research Associate at department of Anthropology, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, Dr. Tandon is an intellectual par excellence.

Dr. Grace Don Nemching

Assistant Professor (Senior Scale), SOEDS, IGNOU

Dr Grace Don Nemching is currently working as Assistant Professor (Senior Scale) at School of Extension and Development Studies (SOEDS), IGNOU. She has more than 14 years of teaching experience at IGNOU and Delhi University. She has presented papers in conferences, reviewed a book, written papers for Journals and has a published book titled ‘Marriage, Family and Kinship among the Paite tribe of Manipur’. Her work mainly revolves around social structure and education.

Dr. Mercy Vungthianmuang Guite

Assistant Professor, Centre of German Studies, School of Languages, Literature & Cultural Studies, JNU, New Delhi

Dr. Mercy has been awarded the Wuppertal Scholarship for her Doctorate (2014), the DLA-Marbach scholarship for the 5th International summer school in Marbach, Germany (2011), and the DAAD scholarship – A New passage to India at the University of Konstanz, Germany (2009-2010). Since 2018, she is the co-coordinator of the Konstanz-JNU (Baden-Wuerttemberg) Scholarship. One of her recent projects examines German ‘Intercultural’ literature (post-war to present day) and is currently working on the Intersection of the verbal and the visual arts in German Literature from the 18th-20th Century. She has translated several Paite folk-tales into English and has contributed much to the academic development of the literature of the Paite community. Her research interests include Literature, Language, Art history, and Culture Studies.  

Dr. Shobhit Wadhwa, Canada

Dr. Shobhit Wadhwa is a proactive and dynamic academician with more than 17 years of proven antiquity of bridging creative and managerial insight, offering a wealth of talent in the development and implementation of educational innovative tools and practices in the classroom. He possess vast experience in the fields of Teacher Education and Commerce. He is adept in creative teaching strategies that fully engage students in the learning process. He is deeply invested in achieving tenure through administrative service committee contributions and an accomplishment-oriented approach to teaching.

Anushka Bharadwaj, New Delhi, India

Anushka is a creative empath. She believes in perfection, hard work & confidence. She is friendly and an excellent people manager.Her strength lies in the impeccable observation of events & people around which is reflected in her stories and poetry. She is one of the youngest contributors at The Marshmallow. As part of the editorial team, Anushka highlights the way today’s teenagers & youth think and show us the way.

Madhuri Rana, West Bengal, India

Researcher & Moderator, Team RIEDU

A philosopher at heart , Madhuri is a lover of music and literature. She finished her masters in English literature from Presidency University, Kolkata. She loves reading, researching and writing. She is has keen interest in Pedagogy, Children Studies, Fashion, Psychology, Ecology and Science. She believes education should imbibe the element of critical thinking among students so that s/he can question every existing norm of society for further evolution.

Dimple Singh Kochchar Founder, ZenMoksha

For Yoga instructor & practitioner Dimple, Yoga is a daily living. She applies her daily practice in her day to day life. She starts her every morning with Pranayama, Asanas, Meditation & Chanting. Dimple had the good fortune & blessing to learn from Ms. Nivedita Joshi, an ardent disciple of yogacharya late Shri BKS Iyengar. She is a respected & dedicated teacher of Iyengar school of yoga. Dimple also has the divine blessing of Swami Sivananda, the founder of Sivananda School of Yoga.

She has combined her training from the two schools of yoga. The combination of precision & alignment along with breathing & focusing inwards has resulted in Dimple becoming a capable teacher herself. She loves to teach and share her love for yoga with her adult as well as kid students! Dimple gains her knowledge from practice, practice and more practice. She is an avid reader of books on Yoga!