Dr. D Rajasekhar is the in-charge Vice Chancellor ofDr. B.R. Ambedkar School of Economics University, Bengaluru (BASE University). He is currently holding the full charge as the Director, Institute for Social and Economic Change, Bengaluru. Prior to the appointment as the Director of ISEC, he was working as HAG Professor of Economics in ISECwith over 30 years of research and teaching experience.
The areas of interest of Prof. Rajasekhar are decentralised delivery of public services, social protection and microfinance. He has published 29 books and over 100 papers in reputed national and international journals and as book chapters. His papers covering issues relating to social protection such as wage employment programme, health insurance, financial incentives and decentralisation, etc., have been published in international journals such as World Development, Economic Journal, Economic Development and Cultural Change, and Indian journals of Economic and Political Weekly and Social Change.
Prof. Rajasekhar has had considerable international experience in social science research. He was visiting scholar at the Universities of Hitotsubashi, Oxford, Melbourne, Sussex and at the Centre for Development Research, Copenhagen. He was Abdul Nazir Sab Chair Professor at the Centre for Multi-Disciplinary Research, Dharwad, Karnataka.
Prof. Rajasekhar obtained Ph.D degree in Economics from the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi (through Centre for Development Studies, Trivandrum). He is currently undertaking research studies on gender quotas, innovations in the delivery of social protection, shock responsive social protection and disaster management at the local level.
Prof. Rajasekhar has served in policy bodies constituted by the governments of India and Karnataka.He has organised and conducted capacity development programmes for the representatives of decentralized government, cooperatives and civil society institutions, donors, government and banks, and has also served as a resource person for the government, donors and NGOs in India and central Asia. Prof. Rajasekhar was awarded Sanjaya Lall prize to his co-authored paper on ‘Collusion, Co-option and Capture: Social Accountability and Social Audits in Karnataka, India’ published in the journal of Oxford Development Studies for its contribution to Development Studies.