PFI Foundation
(Professor Fokhrul Islam Foundation)
An Organization in Special Consultative Status with
Economic and Social Council of the United Nations, since 2012
Our Board
Adv A K Talukdar
President
Advocate A K Talukdar chair the Executive Council of the Foundation. He guides the day to day executive functions of the foundation. He specifically looks after the legal compliances, women rights training, conflict resolution programs of the Foundation. Advocate Talukdar is an experienced, well-qualified and committed Lawyer regularly taking up pro bono cases for the poor. He has been representing in Guwahati High Court and the Supreme Court of India both on Civil and Criminal sides, particularly in writ litigations. He holds MA (English) from Assam University and LLB from Gauhati University.
Professor (Dr) Pampa Mukherjee
Vice President
Prof (Dr) Pampa Mukherjee teaches at the Department of Political Science, Panjab University, Chandigarh. Her areas of specialisation include: Development and Politics, Public Policies, Environment & Politics, Decentralized Governance, Sustainable development, Qualitative Research Methodology. She did her Ph.D. in 1997 from the Centre for Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University New Delhi where she also completed her M.Phil. (1992) and MA (1989). She did her graduation with honours in Political Science from Lady Shri Ram College for Women, University of Delhi.
Sri A R Barbhuiya
Vice President
Mr Barbhuiya is an internationally renowned educational planning expert and works as a consultant with North East Consultancy Services. He has served as a consultant with the state governments of Mizoram, Meghalaya and Nagaland. He was worked with Room to Read (USA) as Interim Country Director Bangladesh and ClearWin Technologies (USA) as Regional Vice-President, South East Asia.
Professor (Dr) Arvinder S. Chawla
Member
With a career spanning over 41 years in teaching profession, Dr Chawla held various leadership positions in Punjabi University, Patiala and University of Rwanda. Till Recently he was the Vice Chancellor, RIMT University, Punjab. He worked as Financial Advisor in a Kenyan Business Conglomerate. He participated in "Making Markets Work" and CPCL at Harvard Business School, USA. He was associated with Harvard Business School for coordinating their Executive Education initiative in East and South African Region. He also coordinated various projects in collaboration with USAID, Ministry of Health - Government of Rwanda. He had been holding Adjunct Professor positions at Wilkes University, USA and University of South Pacific, Fiji. He has supervised 27 students for PhD. D. degree, have 70 research papers, articles published in the reputed journals and authored/edited 11 books. He is a training consultant with many government and private organizations in India and also a nominee director of two companies in India.
Professor (Dr) Nandita Roy
Member
Dr. Nandita Roy traches at Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta. Previously she taught Business Communication at IIM Lucknow and IIM Kashipur. She was also a guest lecturer in Communicative English at National University of Juridical Sciences (NUJS), Kolkata. Nandita’s industry experience includes working as media consultant for National Geographic Channel, India. Her doctoral thesis is on narrativity and storytelling in video games. Her research interests include game based learning, social media communication, business narratives and gender studies. Her recent works include ‘Hot and Cool Media Theory’ in The Sage International Encyclopedia of Mass Media and Society (2018, Forthcoming), and 'Uncertainty as Entrepreneurial Motivation: Tuche, Karma and the Necessity of Action' (2018, Under Review), and ‘Many Materialities in Digital Florence: Assassin’s Creed II’, in Jadavpur University Essays and Studies, Vol. 30, 2016.
Dr Meghadeepa Chakraborty
Member
Dr Meghadeepa is a PhD in Social Sciences from TISS, Mumbai and was an Academic Exchange Fellow at the London School of Economics. She is trained in Entrepreneurship at the Universities of Santiago de Compostela, Spain and University of Glasgow, UK. She was trained at institutes like IIM-A, IIM-Udaipur, Duke University, ISSEC, Bangalore. She served as a faculty in institutions like Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Guwahati campus and Banasthali Vidyapith. Her major area of specializations are Livelihood, Livelihood Rights and Conflict, Livelihood and Social Work Practice, Entrepreneurship and Social Entrepreneurship, Rural Development, Research Methodology with special emphasis on Qualitative Methodology. As Centre Chairperson of the Livelihood and Social Entrepreneurship (CLSE) at TISS Guwahati, spearheaded the programme and headed the entire operations including administration, communication, preparation of annual plan and budget, stakeholder mappings and curriculum development.
Sri Ratnajyoti Dutta
Member
Sri Ratnajyoti Dutta holds the prestigious journalist accreditation of the Press Information Bureau (PIB) under the Freelance category. He is a Government of India recognized Journalist with a demonstrated history of covering various industries like petroleum, environment, trade, agriculture, consumer affairs, etc with Specialisation in covering Oil & Gas, Indian Monsoon, Carbon Trade, Renewable Energy, Agriculture, Political and General News, Real Estate and Construction. He has two decades of experience in News Writing, Communication, Breaking News, Business Journalism, and Editing. He has worked with reputed agencies like Reuters, Dow Jones Newswires, The Wall Street Journal and Press Trust of India. He is a senior Media and Communication professional with a Master of Science in Econometrics and Quantitative Economics from Gauhati University.
Mr Abraham Thomas
Member
Abraham Thomas has over twenty five years’ experience in area of Information Technology and held positions as Managing Managers, IT consultant, IT expert in program Implementation. He has background in successful traditional and entrepreneurial venues. Use a real-world approach to problem solving and a deep well of experience to meet the challenges of this fast-paced, high-turnover industry. He has extended Project Consultancy in 74 educational Institutions, in the Northeast region for National Educational Research and Development Program (NERDP-NER), an Autonomous International Post Secondary Non Profit Statutory Education Agency, Country Agency of International Network for Quality Assurance and Assessment in Higher Education (INQAAHE).
Sri Archan Mitra
Member
Sri Archan Mitra is currently an Assistant Professor at the School of Media Film and Entertainment at Sharda University, India. Previously he has taught at the School of Communication, Amity University, Kolkata. He also served as an Academic Associate (Communication Area) at the Indian Institute of Management Kashipur and submitted his doctoral thesis on Information and Communication logistical modelling to Visva-Bharati. His research interests include Science Communication, Social Media, Environmental Communication, and the New Media. He is also a professional wildlife photographer, documentary maker, graphic designer and junior software engineer. He supervised the pre-poll general election survey in West Bengal (2014) sponsored by Zee News.
Professor Dr Fazlur Rahman
Member
Dr Rahman teaches at Cotton University, Guwahati. He has also served as the Deputy Director, and interim Director of Madrassa Education, Assam and Secretary, State Madrassa Education Board, Assam. He leads Foundation's training and interreligious understanding programs and coordinated inter-faith dialogue training project funded by the British High Commission, New Delhi
Sri Abdul Noor Barbhuiya
Member
Mr Noor Barbhuiya is a grassroots level social worker based in Guwahati. He is associated with many local communities and assists Foundation's community-based linkages with the local population. He has many years of experience in setting up community organizations, socio-cultural groups and networks with local Community Base Organisations.
Sri Arif Hussain Ansari
Member
Mr Arif Ansari is one of the founding members of the Foundation and associated with its community services, specially flood relief and 'feed the hungry' initiatives. He takes on a variety of roles, often acting as a critical friend facilitating the support that people need through creative use of all available resources. He mobilises people to access training, work opportunities and benefits.
Sri Hafizur Rahman
Member (Treasurer)
In his initial career, Mr Hafizur Rahman was a very popular science teacher. He then moved to the logistics sector working with reputed brands like Planters Airways. Now, he devotes his time to community service. He supervises the logistics of different relief operations undertaken by the Foundation. He was instrumental in leading the Foundation's 2008 Assam Flood Relief programme and food supplementation program.
Dr K M Jahirul Islam
Executive Director
Dr Jahir has been working in the field of Rural Healthcare services for more than a decade. He has served as Project Head/Manager in one of the largest Fluorosis Mitigation Projects funded by JICA in Rajasthan, India. He served as a consultant for UNICEF in the field of Child Nutrition for more than four years. He had also managed the Diabetic Awareness and Management programme funded by WDF, Denmark and Village Health Outreach Programme in Assam.