India’s Democratic Success

Dr. Sandeep Shastri is the Pro Vice Chancellor of JAIN – a deemed to be University, and heads its Centre for Research in Social Sciences and Education (CERSSE). He prefers to call himself a researcher by training, a teacher by passion, a trainer by practice and above all a lifelong learner. His research has focussed on understanding Indian politics from the prism of citizen perspectives. His writings have largely been on Electoral politics, Karnataka politics and Federalism. He has authored over seven books, written over fifty chapters in edited books, and over seventy five articles in referral journals. He is the Co-Chair of the Research Committee of the International Political Science Association (IPSA) that focuses on Comparative Survey Research. As the National Coordinator of the Lokniti network, he has been part of the team that has undertaken the National Election Study for the last quarter of the century.

Dr. Shastri has served as a Consultant to prestigious international agencies. He has been a United Nations Consultant on Political Parties Reform in the Pacific Rim countries. He was the World Bank Consultant on Governance in Nepal. He leads the Forum of Federations Consultancy Project in Myanmar on Capacity Building for Transition to Democracy. He was also part of the Forum of Federations team that was involved in Consultancy on Constitutional Making in South Sudan and Federalism reform in Sudan. Dr. Shastri is a leading election analyst and features regularly on the electronic media and is currently the Election Analyst for India Today TV. Dr. Shastri writes for the print media in Kannada, Hindi and English andmore than 200 of his OpEd page articles have appeared in well known newspapers. Dr. Shastri was privileged to play a key role in drafting Karnataka’s Youth Policy by serving as the Chairman of the Drafting Committee of the said policy. He has given lectures at prestigious universities across the world in over 50 countries.