Law Enforcement and Policing Fellowship (LEPF) 2025-2026 Cohort

Shashvat Kumar

An electronics and instrumentation engineer who happens to be an IPS officer with 10 years of field experience. He currently serves as Commandant, with a research focus on digitisation in policing.

Deepti George

Deepti George is a public policy professional in the financial services domain. She runs Yutadhi, an independent think-and-action tank dedicated to supporting India’s financial system to better serve its citizens. Her research covers institutional and distribution design of retail and wholesale financial services, systemic risk, and consumer protection. She has contributed to policy and regulatory outcomes via the RBI, SEBI, and the Ministry of Finance, and engaged with multilateral platforms such as CGAP/World Bank, UN Foundation’s DIAL, and UNDP. She holds a post-graduate diploma in business management (finance) from IFMR and a certificate in regulatory analysis and decision-making from Carey Law School, University of Pennsylvania.

Anjali Gandhi

Anjali Gandhi is a lawyer and public policy scholar-practitioner with over five years of experience in high-impact policy research and legislative advocacy. Her current research involves a socio-legal audit of India’s digitised police records (CCTNS), evaluating how automated record-keeping influences procedural due process and the fundamental right to a fair trial. She has previously served as Senior Associate for Policy and Parliamentary Engagements at the Swaniti Initiative, as a Legal Consultant with the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR), and worked with the Cyber Cell (CyPAD) of the Delhi Police. She holds an M.A. in Criminal Law and Forensic Science from NALSAR University of Law and a B.A. LL.B. from Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University.

Dr. T.V. Rajesh

Dr. T.V. Rajesh is Superintendent of Central Tax with the CGST & Customs department in Bengaluru. He has previously served as DySP with the National Investigation Agency (NIA), as Superintendent of Central Excise & Service Tax, as an Intelligence Officer with the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI), and as Police Inspector with the CBI Anti Corruption Branch. He has investigated high-profile cases involving ISIS terrorism modules, left-wing extremism, international human trafficking, gold smuggling, and bank fraud. He is a recipient of the President’s Police Medal for Meritorious Service (2021) and the Union Home Minister’s Medal for Special Operations (2023).

Dr. Vishali Sharma

Dr. Vishali Sharma works as an Assistant Professor at NSIT-IFSCS in the Department of Cybersecurity, with more than eight years of teaching experience in academics and online platforms.

Chandan Pal Singh

Chandan Pal Singh is a distinguished educator and internationally certified Global Citizenship Education (GCED) and Digital Citizenship trainer with over 19 years of international teaching experience in Computer Science and Information Technology across Kazakhstan, India, Indonesia, China, and Singapore. He has co-authored and edited numerous books and published over 50 research papers in leading international journals. He is a certified trainer under APCEIU, UNESCO, and is an active member of various educational societies.

Moulina Bhattacharya

Moulina Bhattacharya is a doctoral researcher in the Department of English and Cultural Studies at Christ University, India. Her field of study encompasses nonfictional life-writing (including police memoirs), memory studies, postcolonial literature, and sociolinguistics. Her articles on heterotopic transcendence, urban feminism, dystopic narrative, and Indian police narrative are published in Scopus-indexed reputed journals.

Avinash Pandey

Avinash Pandey is a civil servant in the Indian Revenue Service (IRS), Government of India, with diverse experience spanning taxation, international trade and commerce, digital transformation, and strategic enforcement. He is a recipient of the Young India Fellowship (Ashoka University), the Raisina Young Fellowship, and the Asian Forum on Global Governance Fellowship. He has been named a NEXT Milan Future Leader in the Civil Servant category by ISPI, Bocconi University, and OECD. His articles have appeared in the WCO Asia Pacific Publication, The Print, Financial Express, Indian Express, and ORF, among others.

Amit Kumar

Amit Kumar is an Indian Police Service (IPS) officer of the Uttar Pradesh cadre with extensive experience in policing, public order management, and institutional leadership. He is currently pursuing doctoral research on socio-economic determinants of crime and public safety, employing data-driven and geo-spatial analytical approaches. His research interests include cybercrime governance, crowd management, and the application of artificial intelligence in policing and criminal justice administration. He has conceptualised and worked on AI-enabled investigative support systems aimed at improving evidence-based decision-making within police organisations.

Olivia Ruhil

Olivia Ruhil is a lawyer and public policy scholar-practitioner working on governance and the design of public institutions. Her current work focuses on the use of artificial intelligence in legal workflows in Indian law firms, and what this means for professional responsibility, quality of legal work, and human judgement. She is an LL.M. student at the Faculty of Law, University of Delhi.

Swaminathan Ravichandran

S.N. Ravichandran is a professional with expertise in applied chemistry, industrial manufacturing, and cybercrime investigation and security. He assists the Coimbatore City Police in investigating cybercrimes, white-collar offences, and economic scams, and serves as faculty at the Tamil Nadu Police In-House Training School, training officers on cybercrime investigation. He is the author of Primordial Rights and Fundamentals in the Digital Age and A Handy Book on Cybercrime, Investigation, Prosecution and Security, and co-author of Cyber Law. He contributed to designing an M.Tech/M.S. curriculum in Cyber Forensics for IGNOU and C-DAC.

Bhawni Mishra

Bhawni Mishra is a political science scholar and policy researcher specialising in governance, public policy, and human rights. A UGC-NET qualified academic, she completed her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Political Science from St. Xavier’s College, Ranchi. She currently works with YuvaCracy Centre for Policy Research, contributing to legislative analysis, policy discussions, and academic initiatives.

Maruti Joshi

Maruti Joshi is an IPS officer currently serving as Superintendent of Police, Civil Rights, PHQ, Jaipur.

Het Kumar Patel

Het Kumar Patel is an MSc Forensic Science student in the Department of Cyber and Digital Forensics at NSIT-IFSCS, Ahmedabad. His interests lie in cybercrime investigation, phishing fraud analysis, digital evidence examination, AI in forensics, and emerging online fraud detection techniques.

Karrthik Madhira

Karrthik Madhira is an IPS Officer of the 2020 batch, currently posted as Additional Superintendent of Police in Maharashtra. He holds a B.Tech in Computer Science Engineering and brings prior experience as a Business Research Analyst at Deloitte. His work sits at the intersection of law enforcement and technology, with a focus on crime investigation, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, predictive policing, and intelligence analysis. He has pursued continued learning through programmes at IIT Kanpur, Takshashila Institution, and Raisina House.

Dr. Hriday Sarma

Dr. Hriday Sarma is an Advocate practising before the Supreme Court of India and the Gauhati High Court, and a scholar of international political economy and energy policy. He holds a Ph.D. in Energy Studies from Jawaharlal Nehru University and brings over a decade of experience in academia, policy research, and geopolitical risk analysis, with a particular focus on West Asia and Eurasia. He has served as a Visiting Research Fellow in Israel and Azerbaijan and has published in peer-reviewed journals and leading international newspapers on energy transitions, migration governance, and global geoeconomic developments.

Lalit Maheshwari, IPS (Retd.)

Lalit Maheshwari is a retired IPS officer from Jaipur, holding qualifications in M.Com, MA, ACMA, and LLB, and practising as an Insolvency Professional and Advocate. He served 30 years in Rajasthan Police across various capacities, retiring as DIGP, Anti Corruption Bureau, Jaipur. He was conferred the President’s Police Medal for Meritorious Services in 2013 and won the PM Silver Cup Essay Competition conducted by NPA consecutively in 2017 and 2019. After superannuation, he served as Registrar at the NCLT Bench, Jaipur.

Neharika Gupta

Neharika Gupta is an LL.M. student at the Faculty of Law, University of Delhi, and has been actively engaged in research roles in public policy and law.