(Associate Researcher, December 2025 – Present)

Biography:

Dipa Sinha is Associate Professor at Centre for the Study of the Indian Economy (CSIE), Azim Premji University, Bengaluru. Dipa is a development economist interested in issues related to economic and social policy in India. She has an MA and PhD in Economics from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi and MSc in Development Studies from School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), London. Her areas of expertise include social policy, food and nutrition rights, public health and gender. She has taught at Ambedkar University Delhi (AUD) for almost ten years.

Dipa has worked on several field studies evaluating programmes such as the Public Distribution System, child-related nutrition programmes and maternity entitlement schemes. Earlier, she worked with the Office of Commissioners to the Supreme Court (on the Right to Food) as senior researcher and later, as an adviser. In this capacity, she has engaged with state and union governments on the design and evaluation of various welfare schemes. She is also part of civil society networks such as the Right to Food Campaign India.

She also has been part of large multi-country research teams such as the Palanpur Longitudinal Village Studies (London School of Economics, hosted at Centre de Sciences Humaines) and ​‘Food Riots and Food Rights’ (Institute for Development Studies, Sussex). She was a member of the report on Nutrition and Food Systems of the High-Level Panel of Experts (HLPE) of the Committee on World Food Security (CFS), FAO. She has been the Health and Population Innovation Fellow of the Population Council (earlier known as McArthur Foundation’s Fund for Leadership Development).

Dipa contributes regularly to academic as well as popular publications. She was awarded the Elizabeth Adiseshaiah Citation for contribution to the field of Development Studies in 2023.

Recent Publications

Damodaran, S., Gupta, S., Mitra, S., & Sinha, D. (Eds.). (2024). Development, transformations and the human condition: Essays in honour of Jayati Ghosh. Routledge.

Prasad, V., Sinha, D., & Joseph, R. J. (2024). Global relevance of MGRS growth standards: The case of India. BMJ Paediatrics Open, 8, e002472. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjpo-2023-002472

Rajeev, A., & Sinha, D. (2024). Elucidating the women’s work continuum in India using time-use data. Area Development and Policy, 9(2). https://doi.org/10.1080/23792949.2023.2270044

Sinha, D. (2022). Interrogating progress in addressing malnutrition in India. Social Scientist, 50(9–10), 59–81.

Sinha, D. (2021). Hunger and food security in the times of COVID-19. Journal of Social and Economic Development. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40847-020-00124-y