Biography:

Khaliq Parkar is a PhD candidate in Geography at CESSMA, Université Paris Cité.

Khaliq’s PhD focuses on the digitalization of urban governance in India and is supervised by Dr. Marie-Hélène Zérah. He has been following transformations introduced during the Smart Cities Mission and National Urban Digital Mission. Using the case study of Bhubaneswar, he identifies the transformations arising from the introduction of platforms, installation of digital infrastructure, and a turn towards data-driven governance. He draws on detailed policy reviews, interviews across national, regional and local scales, and ethnographies of IT engineers and consultants.

Khaliq holds a MA and MPhil from the Centre for Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University (New Delhi). Prior to the PhD, he taught at the Symbiosis School for Liberal Arts (Pune), NMIMS University (Mumbai), St. Xavier’s College (Mumbai), and Wilson College (Mumbai).

Recent Publications:

Parkar, Khaliq (2023). “Digital Legacies and Distressed Capacities. Evaluating Platforms of Spatial Governance in Bhubaneswar.” South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal (30).

Parkar, Khaliq, Marie-Hélène Zérah, and Gaurav Mittal (2023). “Platformisation, Infrastructuring, and Datafication.” Economic & Political Weekly 58 (14).

Parkar, Khaliq, and Uttara Purandare (2023). “Decoding Digitalization of Urban Governance in India: Policy, People and Processes of the Smart Cities Mission and National Urban Digital Mission.” Working Paper, Centre for Policy Research. New Delhi.