Meet the Team

Urvashi Butalia

Managing Trustee, Research Director

Urvashi Butalia co-founded Kali for Women in 1984 and in 2003, Zubaan. With over 35 years of experience in feminist and independent publishing, she has a formidable reputation in the industry in India and abroad. She also has a long involvement in the women’s movement in India, and is a well-known writer, both in academia and in the literary world. She has several works to her credit, key among which is her path-breaking study of Partition, The Other Side of Silence: Voices from the Partition of India which won the Oral History Book Association Award and the Nikkei Asia Award for Culture. She has also taught publishing for over 20 years and is on the advisory boards of a number of national and international organisations. She has received many awards, among which are the Pandora award for women’s publishing, the French Chevalier des Artes et des Lettres and the Padma Shree, the highest civilian honour awarded by the Indian government.

 

Bidisha Mahanta

Executive Director

Bidisha has a (barely used) bachelor’s degree in law and a master’s in development and labour studies from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. She is a feminist researcher, with a focus on gender, citizenship, conflict and peacebuilding, disability and more, with a decade of experience working with women’s groups and collectives, especially focused in Northeast India. Bidisha serves a board member of WAYVE, which works with young people from Dalit, Bahujan, Adivasi, Tribal and religious minority communities. She is currently editing a volume on women, queer, trans and nonbinary persons experiences of belonging in Northeast India through visual research practices and has an upcoming chapter on conflict, peacebuilding, citizenship and gender in an edited volume on Critical Feminist Approaches To Peace & Conflict Studies, as a part of the Edinburgh Feminist Studies on Peace, Violence and Justice series published by Edinburgh University Press. She’s a true khar-khua axomiya and makes a mean smoked pork curry with bhut jolokia and lai xaak, when she’s not feeling too exasperated with her cats (and the world, in general).

 

Satish Sharma

Head of Administration

Satish has over thirty years of experience working in non-government organizations. He has been with Kali and then Zubaan for seventeen years. He manages the finance and accounts of various projects undertaken by Zubaan, as well as contributes a lot to the unhindered functioning of the office space. He can also manage a mean backhand in badminton and give players younger than him a run for their money.

 

 

Divya Kandukuri

Programme & Research Coordinator

Divya Kandukuri is a journalist by training and founder of a Phule-Ambedkarite mental health collective, The Blue Dawn. The Blue Dawn is a community initiative working by values of community healing and social justice and a facilitator of accessible mental health care services to people coming from caste and ethnic marginalities. Divya is also a trainer who has been working with social workers, media professionals, and mental health professionals to bring conversations on the caste system into their practices. Her work lies around the intersections of Caste, Gender, Pop Culture and Mental Health. When not doing boring work on her laptop, she is a full-time dog mom and an avid horror movie-watcher who wishes to see the world free of prejudice.

 

Aanchal Seema Khulbe

Manager — Programming & Media Archive

Aanchal Seema Khulbe is a feminist and transformative justice educator, researcher, activist and artist. Ash holds an M.Phil. in Gender Studies and is dedicated to advocating for safer and more accessible women’s shelters across the world. She is deeply engaged with the issues of gender-based violence, queer politics and law, and is committed to work towards a gender-just world for all.

 

 

Indira Tayeng

Project Associate

Indira Tayeng is a researcher focusing on statelessness in South Asia’s Himalayan Borderlands.
With a profound interest in exploring the concept of belonging, she delves into the complexities of
identity, gendered roles, displacement, citizenship and migration. As an avid seeker of new
experiences and perspectives, she intends to bring out the narratives of the borderland lives and
aspire to make a difference by telling their stories. Beyond her academic pursuits, she finds solace
in the company of her two beloved cats, Ron and Miyoko, who hold a special place in her heart.

 

Tenzin Choedon

Programme & Research Coordinator

Tenzin, a Tibetan residing in Dharamshala, began her career at Drokmo, a Tibetan feminist organisation championing gender equity, serving as a Program Officer and researcher. Subsequently, she ventured into independent consulting, specialising in facilitation and research. Her research interests revolve around Gender, Minority and Tibet Studies. She also embarked on a personal creative journey, crafting “The Quiet Solace of Sunset,” a humble exploration into the world of filmmaking. Tenzin is a passionate lifelong learner, eager to grow and one day return to her origin in Tibet.

 

Thingnam Anjulika Samom

Project Coordinator (Northeast India — Cultures of Peace)

Thingnam Anjulika Samom is an independent researcher who dabbles with translation of Manipuri literature into English. She also undertakes independent research and documentation work, the most recent being collecting Manipuri women’s narratives of the Second World War. She has contributed to various publications and also edited Crafting The Word: Women’s Writings from Manipur which was published by Zubaan, New Delhi in 2019.

 

 

Elsy Paul

Administrative Assistanct

Elsy has been a committed employee with Kali, and then Zubaan for over twenty-two years. She manages to be Zubaan’s secretary, bookkeeper and receptionist all at the same time! She very grudgingly agrees to give discounts, occasionally.

 

Usha

Chef

Usha is an office assistant and our resident cook, and has been working with Zubaan since 2013. She is Young Zubaan’s greatest fan and is slowly and steadily devouring all the children’s books here to improve her English reading and writing skills.

 

 

 

Ishani K B

Project Consultant (No Space For Work)

Ishani KB works on the No Space For Work project and has previously worked on the Sexual Violence and Impunity project and a scoping study on the possibility of setting up a women’s museum in India, for Zubaan. Ishani is also the commissioning editor of the Young Zubaan list for our sister publishing organization. She is often found putting out many fires around the office and trying to teach people traffic rules and pedestrians right of way, outside of the office.

 

 

Laxmi Murthy

Project Consultant (No Space For Work)

Laxmi Murthy is a journalist, writer and researcher based in Bangalore. She is contributing editor with Himal Southasian, Colombo, and heads the Hri Institute for Southasian Research and Exchange, Kathmandu.  She is passionate about freedom of expression and journalists’ rights and is the editor of the annual IFJ South Asia Press Freedom Report. Laxmi helped co-ordinate the Sexual Violence and Impunity research and publication project  at Zubaan, and also the Stepping Stones project, which took forward the research through the performing arts. She is one of the co-founders of the Network of Women in Media, India, and co-founder editor of the Free Speech Collective. After more than three decades in the autonomous women’s movement, she is being taught Feminism 201 by her two daughters.