The Asia Foundation

Expertise: governance, transparency and accountability, access to information with a special focus on South Asia

Mandakini is a program officer in The Asia Foundation's country office in India. She joined the Foundation in February 2011 and is managing grants in the areas of local governance, women's empowerment and the environment. Her special interest is in the area of governance, transparency and accountability. Prior to The Asia Foundation, Mandakini was working with the Centre for Policy Research, India's premier think tank based in New Delhi. Her work focused on exploring the linkages between transparency and accountability and the ways in which the right to information can be used as a tool to improve service delivery. Mandakini has also worked with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI), an international human rights organization, in New Delhi. At CHRI, her work involved promoting and advocating for the right to information across Commonwealth countries with a special focus on South Asia. In India, she has been closely involved in advocating with the government at the policy level and civil society organizations at the grassroots to enact and implement the right to information effectively.

Education: BA in History, Lady Shri Ram College for Women, India; MA in Modern Indian History from Jawaharlal Nehru University, India; MSc in Development Studies from the London School of Economics and Political Science, UK.