The Law Enforcement and Policing Fellowship

Applications to the second cohort are now open.

Meet the 2024-25 Cohort of LEPF Fellowship

  • Dr. Naveen Kumar Singh

    Assistant Professor, School of Behavioural Sciences and Forensic Investigations, Rashtriya Raksha University, Gandhinagar.

  • Rahul Dev Sharma

    Deputy Inspector General of Police, Vijayawada, AP.

  • Devina Sikdar

    Forensic Scientist and a Public Policy Consultant.

  • Lt Col Shaurya Vardhan

    Army officer commanding a Military Police unit in Jammu and Kashmir.

  • Karthik Rao Bappanad

    Freelance consultant, Cybersecurity and Technology Policy.

  • Shivashish Narayan

    LL.M candidate Constitutional Law, Oriental Law University, Indore.

  • Dr. Mohit Garg

    Deputy Commissioner of Police, Zone 2, Mumbai.

  • Krushikesh Rawale

    Police Officer, Maharashtra.

  • Aswathy B Surendran

    Post Graduate in Political Science, University of Delhi

  • Ayaan Ali Siddiqui

    Honorary Animal Welfare Representative, Animal Welfare Board of India

  • Dr Mohit Nayal

    Instructor Category A , Corps of Military Police.

  • Dr. Pavithran Nambiar

    Fellow, National Forensic Sciences University, Gandhinagar.

  • Mohit Garg

    Superintendent of Police, Rajnandgaon.

  • Vinay Aseri

    Research Fellow at ESIEA LDR Laboratory, Paris. specializes in cyber forensics, AI, IT consulting.

  • Dr. Bushara Bano

    ASP, Hooghly Rural, West Bengal.

  • Harshal Mahajan

    IPS (Probationer) 2022, Lakshadweep

  • Dr. Pavithran Nambiar

    Senior Faculty at the National Forensic Sciences University, Gandhinagar, Gujarat.

  • Syed Mustafa Hashmi

    ASP, Dumka.

  • Jayant Priyadarshi

    PhD candidate, Rashtriya Raksha University Gandhinagar Gujarat.

Overview

The Law Enforcement & Policing Fellowship is designed to identify and support serving and retired police officers, journalists, technology professionals, academicians, and lawyers committed to conducting fresh and original research aimed at upgrading India’s law enforcement system. 

By fostering evidence-based research and development, the fellowship seeks to generate practical policy ideas and explore avenues for police reforms. It aims to create a unique, capacity-building and networked forum that provides actionable insights and knowledge that benefit Indian law enforcement.

The Fellowship

The Law Enforcement & Policing Fellowship offers opportunities for police officers, lawyers, technology professionals, journalists, and law graduates to work under the guidance of some of India’s foremost experts. The Fellows will work on a policy brief/paper that will contribute to the discourse on policing in the information age.

To co-create ideas, there will be periodic hackathons where the Fellows will present their research and insights to a select audience of mentors and experts from the law enforcement community.

In addition, an independent jury will award a cash prize of up to Rs 1 lakh to the best policy briefs. The fellowship lasts 12 months.

Indian Police Foundation (IPF) is a knowledge and institutional partner of the Law Enforcement and Policing Fellowship.

Who Should Apply

We invite applications from candidates from backgrounds including, but not limited to:

  • Serving & retired police officers across Indian states, officers in central police organisations, military police and other allied services

  • Civil servants/government officials, especially in state home departments 

  • Public prosecutors and lawyers 

  • Academics, especially in the domains of criminology, forensic sciences and criminal law 

  • Crime analysts and journalists, especially crime reporters, and researchers

Prospective fellows must be Indian citizens, have at least an undergraduate degree and be proficient in English.

Fellowship Themes

For the fellowship, we encourage policy briefs on law enforcement and policing in these and allied domains, but not limited to: 

  1. Impact of technology on policing and crime prevention (on surveillance, crime reporting, forensics, detecting and tracing cybercrimes, hacking, financial crimes, and illegal trade among others); Identifying and building tools and techniques made available by the information age that can aid policing functions and Use of forensics in traditional and economic crimes.

  2. Procedural & governance reforms to combat information age crimes and to ensure effective policing in radically networked societies.

  3. Reforms in personnel management and training to match the information age problems; digitisation of records and databases; organisational change; reforms in police structures and resource allocation and overall upgradation of India’s law enforcement system; Digitalisation in police thinking & building a new generation of cyber cops and Building a knowledge ecosystem for police and crime analysts.

  4. Building frameworks for evidence-based policing in India and identifying use cases; Non-policing interventions to improve law and order conditions.

Fellowship Process

Step 1: Submit Indication of Interest Form

Please enter your details in this Indication of Interest form.

Last date to apply: October 1, 2025.

Step 2: Call for Proposals 

If you meet the Fellowship criteria, we will invite you to submit proposals (of not more than 1000 words) in areas relating to the themes mentioned above. The proposal should clearly state the current problems and shortcomings of knowledge and practices in policing in an Indian context and how the author(s) propose to approach the issue.

Along with the proposal, the author(s) is/are encouraged to send their past work in a related field or a writing sample on any topic, either published or unpublished, that is more than 1000 words.

Step 3: Interviews & Selection

After screening and evaluation, selected candidates will be invited to join the pioneer cohort of The Law Enforcement & Policing Fellowship.

Step 4: Timeline of the Fellowship

Applications to join the second cohort of The Law Enforcement & Policing Fellowship are now open. The Second cohort will begin on December 4, 2025.

Timeline

The application window for the second cohort of Law, Enforcement and Policing Fellowship (LEPF) is now open.

  • December 4th, 2025 - Commencement of the fellowship

  • December - January 2026 - Masterclass sessions and mentor meetings

  • January 24th and 25th, 2026 - 1st Fellowship Hackathon (In-Person)

  • February - March, 2026 - Masterclass sessions and mentor meetings

  • April 30th, 2026 - Submission deadline for the interim draft

  • May 16th and 17th, 2026 (tentative) - 2nd Fellowship Hackathon

  • June 30th, 2026 -Submission deadline for second draft

  • June - September 2026 - Masterclass Sessions and Mentor Meetings

  • September 30th, 2026 - Submission and review of pre-conference draft paper

  • November 2026- Two-day conference and selection of best policy briefs

Mentors

Javeed Ahmad

Adjunct Distinguished Fellow, Takshashila Institution

N. Ramachandran

President and Founder, Indian Police Foundation

M.N. Reddi

Former Commissioner of Police, Bangalore City

Dr Keshav Kumar, IPS (Retd.)

Former Director General of Police & Director Anti-Corruption Bureau, Gujarat State

Ramphal Pawar

Vice President, Indian Police Foundation

Nandkumar Saravade

Former Chief Executive Officer, Reserve Bank Information Technology Pvt Ltd (ReBIT)

Submit Indication of Interest Form