Kamala Kanta Dash

Kamala Kanta Dash (born in 1978) is an Indian journalist, policy analyst, interfaith youth leader and an academic in the areas of communication, public policy, good governance, management and international relations. He is currently teaching Public Policy and International Relations at National Law University Odisha (NLUO) and Business communication at Sri Sri University, both located in Cuttack.

Career

Dash has worked in social science research, digital media, skills training, interfaith, teaching and volunteering. In India he has worked for organizations like Advait and GRFDT and has also worked as a Trainer of Trainers (ToT) in life, social and study skills with Prism Softech Pvt.Ltd for their Newspaper In Education (NIE) project in collaboration with The Hindu in NCR Delhi. At international level he was appointed as one of the Ambassadors at the Parliament of World's Religions (PWR), Chicago. and was the first Odia to join the PWR. He has also worked for the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs as a Carnegie New Leader for two years 2013-15. He studied at Ravenshaw College for his MA in Political Science & World Affairs, did his MPhil in International Relations & Area Studies from Jawaharlal Nehru University and went on to pursue his PhD in Public Policy & South Asian Studies at Monash University in Australia. He is a public policy graduate from Centre for Civil Society a leading Delhi based global think tank and policy training academy and has also completed Policy Workshop organised by Jay Panda, Member of Indian Parliament (MP) from Odisha.

He was a Recipient of the Australian Studies Fellowships (ASF) for 2006-07 at the Australia India Council of the Department Of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), Government of Australia during 2006-07. He was a Government of Odisha Higher Education Fellow at Jawaharlal Nehru University from 2003-2006.

Contributions

Apart from academics, he has been actively contributing to the areas of promoting media and literature in India especially in his native state of Odisha. He is a founding member of Odisha Diary and continues to work there as a senior editor. He has been a founding team member and also has contributed to the success of Kalinga Literary Festival and Odisha Living Legend and Youth Inspiration Awards.

He has presented and published research papers, reviews and newspaper articles on areas like Indian Constitution, Indian Foreign Policy, [...], Social Cohesion, policing, homeland security and interfaith dialogue at different academic and popular platforms including at reputed international conferences and contributed articles to South Asia Masala, an academic blog at Australian National University. While working at Sri Sri University as an Assistant Professor of Good Governance and Public Policy he was interviewed by Art of Living.

As founding members at the School of International Studies of Ravenshaw University and Department of Good Governance and Public Policy at Sri Sri University, he has played an important role in institution building in Odisha in the subject areas of International Relations and Public Policy. At Ravenshaw University he proposed a paper on Odisha and World Affairs to study Odisha's Global Engagement, the first such course in the state.

Known as Prof KKD, he has been a popular teacher and continues to mentor and counsel students to develop national integration, universal citizenship and above all academic, personality and Employability Skills. He has conducted and moderated several workshops for school, college and university level students to promote use of Khadi, study of Law, Indian Constitution, Public Policy, Political Science and International Relations in Odisha.

He has also been invited as an expert panelist by television channels in Odisha to discuss issues related to public policy, national security and global affairs. At Kalinga TV he has participated in a several Panel Discussions notably on Indian 500 and 1000 rupee note demonetisation, 2016 India–Pakistan military confrontation and whether India needs to have another Surgical Strike to respond to [...] attack on Nagrota Army Camp. At Prameya News7 he has been a panelist to discuss Donald Trump Effect on India and another one on Tensions in China–India relations.

Publications