The Team:

Mr. A. Sahasranaman, served in the J&K cadre of IAS until 1996 when he took voluntary retirement. He had held many important positions in the state administration dealing with rural development, hand loom textiles and industrial development. He was involved in development of the first large scale UNDP programme for development of leather industry in India and later in its implementation (1992-96). As Regional Programme Coordinator of UNIDO¡¯s Regional Progarmme for leather industry in South East Asia, he was instrumental in demonstrating cost effective efficient environment management technologies in Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Nepal and Sri Lanka (1996-2002). As an Advisor to the EU-India Trade and Investment Development Programme, he played a role in further strengthening the economic environment for promoting trade and investment between the two regions (2005-2007).

Mr. V. Balasubramanian: Retired from the IAS in 2005 as the Additional Chief Secretary of Karnataka. He has conceived, negotiated with World Bank and implemented a project to modernize the sericulture industry in Karnataka. His interest in renewable energy took him to International energy Initiative, where he helped formulate policies on sugar co generation programme.

Prof. Vinod Vyasulu : An Economist ,  taught at IIM Bangalore, ISEC Bangalore and was Director of IPE Hyderabad. He was the Economic Advisor to the National Small Industries Corporation for two years . He has consulted with a number of state governments and international bodies. Currently as the Director of Centre for Budget and Policy analysis , he carries out research in the area of decentralized governance and budget analyses.

Dr. S. Rajagopalan: Currently a faculty with the International Institute of Information Technology Bangalore , he led the Karnataka State Council for Science and Technology for 14 years. He was engaged in development and dissemination of sustainable rural technologies. A professional in the area of Geographical Information systems         he is  also recognized as a social entrepreneur and was awarded Ashoka fellowship in 1994 and the Salzburg Seminar Fellowship in 1999. He founded TIDE a non profit organisation engaged in dissemination of sustainable technolgies and Spatial Data Private Limited, a pioneer in digital maps and GIS software.

Mr Vijay Venkatachalam: Vijay is Director of Omega Analytics, a Bangalore based business research and analytics company. Vijay began his career as a credit analyst for Indbank Merchant Banking Services. Later, he worked in macro-economic and equity research for Martin Currie Investment Management in Edinburgh, UK. As a Consultant at I-flex Solutions, he has implemented banking software in large financial institutions. He has also advised bank treasuries in India and Europe on various aspects of technology and risk management. Vijay has a B Tech degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay , MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore and M Sc Finance from the University of Strathclyde , Glasgow , UK . He is a Research Associate of the International Institute of Information Technology, Bangalore .