Kishor Joined Pratham in 2003 as Assistant Director for the Pratham Council for Vulnerable Children.  He has a Masters in Social Work from Nirmala Niketan, College of social work. He also has a Post Graduate diploma in Resource Mobilization and Management from SP Jain. He is responsible for strategy planning, execution and overall management of the program. He is also involved in advocacy with state and national government on child labor and child rights. In addition, he is responsible for Fundraising efforts.

RUKMINI BANERJI
Programme Director
Programme Head- U.P., Bihar, Jharkand, Assam, Meghalaya,West Bengal, Head- ASER Centre

Initially trained as an economist in India, Rukmini was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University and completed her PhD at the University of Chicago. She did her post doctoral work at the Population Research Centre at the University of Chicago and later worked as a program officer at the Spencer Foundation before returning to India in 1996. Currently, Rukmini is responsible for Pratham’s work in several major states in north India. She is also a lead member of the team that conducts ASER (Annual Status of Education Report). ASER is the largest annual study ever done by Indian citizens to monitor the status of elementary education in the country. In 2008, this citizen’s audit reached over 7,04,000 children in 16,198 villages of India. In the four years since it was initiated, the ASER effort has been widely recognized for its innovative use of citizens’ participation in understanding and improving the delivery of basic services.

Dr. Willima Wadhwa, Director Statistics, ASER

Dr. Wilima Wadhwa is the Director, Statistics of the ASER Centre. She has been associated with ASER since its inception in 2005 and is responsible for its sample design and the processing of ASER data. Dr. Wadhwa earned her undergraduate degree, with Honors in Economics from Delhi University, MA degrees in Economics from Delhi University and University of California, and her Ph.D. in Economics from the University of California.

Dr. Wadhwa has been published extensively and teaches statistics and econometrics at the University of California (Irvine), and the Indian Statistical Institute (New Delhi). She has also been a member of various government committees, including the Working Group for the Revision of Wholesale Price Index Numbers, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Government of India. Dr. Wadhwa’s other research interests include development and monetary economics.

Prem Yadav, Head Computer Aided Literacy

Prem joined Pratham in 1991 and was a part of the core team that laid the foundations on which the organization has been built. Having worked as the Chief accountant for Pratham, in 1998, Prem helped set up 10 computer labs in the municipal school of different wards of Mumbai, with the help of ICICI bank. The initiative as called the Sanchar Infotech, which today reaches 0.12 million children from disadvantaged sections of society in 226 centres across 7 states in India. Prior to joining Pratham, Prem was part of Committee of Resource Organizations for Literacy (CORO) where we worked on adult literacy and was also a part of the core team that developed the pay and use public toilet project which today benefits 35,000 users each day.

Madhuri Pai, English Programme

Madhuri head the English programme for Pratham and is responsible for the planning, monitoring and evaluation of the program nationally. She has taught in universities in Mumbai and Pune for 15 years and has also been involved in research in this period. She also worked with children with disabilities at the Spastics Society of India. She loves to write for children.

MEERA TENDOLKAR
Programme Director- Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh (M.P.), Content

Meera has been working with Pratham since 1997 and has handled various responsibilities in these years. She is currently responsible for setting up the District Resource Centers in various states of India, and is also working on building the capacities of the Pratham national team. She loves developing teaching material for children and innovative teaching modules.

Suvarna Padhare. Early Childhood care and Education.

Suvarna joined Pratham in 1994 as a Balwadi teacher and has taken on several challenging roles since then. She currently heads the Early Childhood Care and Education Centre. She has played an instrumental role in developing Pratham’s pre-school and shishuvachan programs. She also heads Pratham’s programs in the West Mumbai zone.

Neha Thakur, Head, Scholarship Programme.

Neha heads Pratham’s Scholarship programme, where she is responsible for developing material, tests and trainings. she is also in charge of Pratham’s programmes in the South Mumbai zone. she has closely been involved in developing the content for the ECCE centre. She holds a Masters Certificate in Resource Mobilization Action Research from Worcester University and a Diploma in Education Technology, from Twente University, Holland Sampoorna, Pratham Books.

Brij Kaul : Regional Head, North India

Brij holds a Masters degree in Physics from Delhi University and a postgraduate Diploma in Business Management from IIM Ahmedabad. He served the corporate sector for around four years before he set up a textile unit that he ran for 20 years. Progressing with time, he involved himself with the IT sector, where his company provided wireless data encryption and backup solutions for international banks and network carriers.