Founders

Dr. (Smt.) Durgabai Deshmukh & Dr. C.D. Deshmukh

The Council for Social Development (CSD) was founded by the eminent social reformer Dr. (Smt.) Durgabai Deshmukh, with the active support of Dr. C.D. Deshmukh, a distinguished civil servant, economist, educationist and scholar, as an affiliate of the India International Centre in 1962. In 1970 the organisation was registered as an autonomous institution under the Societies Registration Act of 1860 in Delhi.

Vice President | Acting President

Biswajit Dhar

Professor Biswajit Dhar is Acting president and Distinguished Professor, Council for Social Development, New Delhi. He was a Professor at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning in Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi and has served as the Director General of the Research and Information System for Developing Countries (RIS), a think-tank of Ministry of External Affairs.

Professor Dhar was instrumental in the establishment of the Centre for WTO Studies of the Government of India and was the Head of the Centre for several years. He had also served as a Senior Consultant in the Planning Commission. Professor Dhar has served as a member of the Indian delegation in multilateral treaty negotiations, including the World Trade Organization, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the World Intellectual Property Organization, and the Convention on Biological Diversity. He has been nominated in expert groups for several inter-governmental organizations. Professor Dhar has served on the Board of Directors of the Export-Import Bank of India and was a Member of the Board of Trade, Government of India. He serves as an Adviser to the Asia-Pacific Research and Training Network on Trade of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific and is on the Board of the Inter-University Centre for IPR Studies of the Government of Kerala.

Chairperson

Prof. Shantha Sinha

The CSD-SRC enjoys functional autonomy through its own Managing / Finance Committee. Currently, Prof. Shanta Sinha is the Chairperson of the Managing Committee, a Retired Professor of Political Science, University of Hyderabad and Raman Magsaysay Awardee for her distinguished work on elimination of Child Labour.

Regional Director

Prof. Sujit Kumar Mishra

Prof. Sujit Kumar Mishra is currently the head of the institute as Regional Director.
A skilled practitioner and teacher of research methods and skills include impact assessment, economic analysis and statistics. The other areas of his research interests include interrogating the equity aspects of development - access to education, health, livelihoods - along several axes of marginality - caste, tribes, gender and minorities.