About HUL
Funding & Legal Status
HUL Team
HUL Board
Friends & Advisors
Hyderabad Urban Lab (HUL) Foundation is an interdisciplinary research and action initiative based in Hyderabad. It began in 2012 as the flagship programme of The Right to the City Foundation, a public charitable trust. From 2012 to 2016, HUL carried out a series of action research and community work in the city of Hyderabad, as a step in the direction of bridging the gap between academic urban research and everyday life in the city.
HUL’s work is organized broadly through three programmes: Khidki, School and Observatory. HUL is in the long term committed to produce knowledge that enables action for the coming ten years. This work is focused on three thematic areas of urgent concern – work and employment, learning and education and climate justice.
HUL is founded on three core values: openness, collaboration and entrepreneurship.
Funding & Legal Status
The finances of Hyderabad Urban Lab come from personal contributions, income from paid services and loans from well-wishers.
Hyderabad Urban Lab Foundation is registered in India under Section 8 of Companies Act 2013.
Date of Incorporation: June 21, 2016
CIN: U85300TG2016NPL110410
Tax Exemption: Accorded in June 2018 by the Dept of IT, GOI
Registered Address: Hyderabad Urban Lab, First Floor, Gulshan E Khaleel, 10-5-7/1 First Lancer Road, Masab Tank, Hyderabad, Telangana State.
HUL Team
Swastik Harish
Associate Director
Swastik Harish is an urban development and capacity-building expert with 22 years of experience in India. His research, practice, and teaching portfolio includes land and housing for the urban poor, design and the development sector, evidence-based policy-making, and pedagogy for practitioners. Swastik has worked in and closely with diverse institutional forms including government, non-government, non-profit, for-profit, academic and community-based organizations. Contextual knowledge-creation and capacity building has evolved to be a central tenet in all his work with these stakeholders.
Teja Malladi
Associate Director
Teja is the Associate Director – Spatial Data Analytics at HUL. At HUL he is developing the Spatial Data Centre (SDC), which develops datasets, analysis, platforms, and tools and organizes trainings to meet the needs of researchers, civil society and governmental actors in Hyderabad.
Teja specializes in applying spatial data science techniques to monitor changes in the urban environment, measure spatial inequalities, and reduce disaster risks. He holds a Master’s Degree in Geo-Information Sciences (GIS) and Earth Observation (EO) with a specialization in natural hazards and disaster risk management and a Bachelor’s Degree in Architecture. Teja is also the co-founder and CEO of MapSolve AI Private Limited.
Anil Korkishala
Programs Manager
Anil has over six years of experience in programme management in the development sector, with a background of 10 years in the hospitality sector. He was previously with the Urban Practitioners’ Programme (UPP), the capacity building function of the Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS), Bengaluru, where he comprehensively managed training programmes and events around most of the national urban schemes and missions, working with more than a dozen states and hundreds of cities. He was responsible for liaison, outreach, planning and scheduling courses in collaboration with the faculty, managing the course experience and operations, conducting field visits, managing receivables, budgets and expenses of the projects, vendors, procurement and business development activities. He was able to convert his experience into teaching sessions on project management which he taught within administrative modules of many programmes. He has also previously worked with hospitality brands like Marriott, Accor and Taj Hotels, picking up valuable knowledge in customer service, within and managing teams from diverse backgrounds.
At HUL, Anil is responsible for programme management, overall office administration, business development, outreach, and all institutional operations.
Phanisri Soumya Chavali
Associate
Phanisri is an anthropologist who did her Integrated Masters of Arts from the University of Hyderabad and is an Urban Fellow (2020-21) from the Indian Institute for Human Settlements. She worked on research projects at HUL including- Tackling a Global Pandemic in Asian Megacities, by the Regional Studies Association and Cool Infrastructures. At HUL she is responsible for social media communications and also handles archive, data, and library management.
Nivedita Tuli
Ecologist
Nivedita is an ecologist and educator. She has a bachelor’s degree in communications (2018) from the University of Delhi and a master’s degree (2020) from the School of Human Ecology at Ambedkar University Delhi. Prior to joining HUL, Nivedita worked for three years with the forest bureaucracy at the state level and at the central level in Delhi. Her research interests are urban ecology and geography, evolutionary biology, environmental history, and science and technology studies.
At HUL, Nivedita is building our urban ecology and nature education programme – Project Critterabad. The project aims to help city dwellers cultivate the “art of noticing” Hyderabad’s “critters” – plants, animals, fungi, slime molds, rocks, communities, individuals. Nivedita is studying issues in the city through an ecological lens, and helping people un-layer and articulate their ideas and questions around the environment. Underlying Critterabad are the questions – Why have city dwellers lost the ability to notice and reflect? How can we rebuild this capacity?
Andrew DeSouza
Associate
Andrew is a sociologist and urban researcher. He has undertaken interdisciplinary urban research in Mumbai, Bangalore, and Hyderabad. His interests are in urbanisation and urban transformations. He is currently developing the HUL School programme.
Mohd Siraj Hussain
Office Assistant
Lakshmi
Housekeeping
HUL Board
Dr. Anant Maringanti
Director
Dr Anant is a geographer with research and teaching interests centre on questions of urbanisation and globalization from the South Asian vantage point. He has decades of teaching experience across institutes of national significance such as National University of Singapore, NALSAR, SPA, University of Hyderabad, to name a few. He is the Director of Hyderabad Urban Lab where he spearheads research, collaborates with stakeholders across public and private domains, and mentors young researchers and practitioners.
Bhashwati Sengupta
Director
Bhashwati would rather sit in a well lit cave and write poetry but instead finds herself grinding her teeth at the Google news page, multiple times a day. At other times she plans and organises things at HUL. She believes that the dangers of a single story cannot be overstated. She hopes we all always stay mindful of the multiple stories afloat all around us and learn all we can about coexistence as long as we exist.
Prasad Shetty
Board Member
Prasad is an urbanist whose work involves research and teaching on contemporary Indian urbanism including architectural practices, studies of post-industrial landscapes, housing types, archiving post liberalization developments, entrepreneurial practices and urban property. He is a founding member of the Collective Research Initiatives Trust (CRIT), an organization involved with research and practice on urbanism. He also works with the Mumbai Metropolitan Region – Environment Improvement and Heritage Conservation Society and teaches at the Rachana Sansad’s Academy of Architecture in Mumbai.
Dr. Gautam Bhan
Board Member
Gautam is an urbanist and LQBTQI+ activist whose work focuses on urban poverty, inequality, social protection, housing, gender and sexuality. He has worked with the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, State governments of Delhi, Karnataka, Odisha and Rajasthan on affordable and adequate housing and on design and delivery of social protection schemes for the urban poor. He is the Associate Dean at the School of Human Development at Indian Institute for Human Settlements.
Friends & Advisors
Dr. Vinay Gidwani
Professor, Dept. of Geography, University of Minnesota
Dr. Vamsi Vakulabharam
Associate Professor of Economics,
University of Massachusetts Amherst
Dr. Priti Ramamurthy
Professor, Gender and Sexuality Studies, University of Washington
Bharat Bhushan
Development Professional
Mahnoor Yar Khan
Artist and Drama Therapist for young people in conflict zones
Dr. Amirullah Khan
Professor and Economist, Centre for Good Governance
Ashhar Farhan
Technologist and Entrepreneur, Co-Founder of Lamakaan
Dr. Biju Mathew
Associate Professor,
Rider University
Dr. Sarah Waheed
Professor, Department of History,
Davidson College
HUL: A Safe Space
HULF is committed to provide a work environment that ensures every employee is treated with dignity and respect and afforded equitable treatment, is conducive to the professional growth of its employees, where employees are not subjected to any form of harassment. HULF has a zero tolerance policy towards sexual harassment for its employees, the communities it works with, and for any visitors visiting its office premises.
Sexual harassment is conduct that may be reasonably perceived by the victim as sexually unwelcome, and includes any one or more of the following acts or behaviour (whether directly or by implication):
- Unwelcome acts of physical intimacy;
- Requests for sexual favours;
- Making sexually coloured remarks;
- Showing pornography
- Any other unwelcome physical, verbal or non-verbal conduct of sexual nature, including:
i. Implied or overt promise of preferential treatment in employment;
ii. Implied or overt threat of detrimental treatment in employment;
iii. Implied or overt threat about present or future employment status;
iv. Conduct of any person which interferes with work;
v. Creating an intimidating or offensive or hostile work environment;
vi. Humiliating conduct constituting health and safety problems.
HULF recognises that sexual harassment may be experienced by any individual, irrespective of their gender identity or sexual orientation.
Inebriation is not a defence for engaging in any conduct that amounts to sexual harassment.
HULF has a clear policy for dealing with any reported instances of sexual harassment, including internal disciplinary measures as well as initiating appropriate legal action. HULF has constituted an Internal Complaints Committee or ICC under section 4 of the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition And Redressal) Act, 2013. See the list of ICC members below.
- The Presiding Officer: Bhashwati Sengupta, Director, HULF <bhashwatis@gmail.com>
- Members: Anant Maringanti, Director, HULF <amaringanti@gmail.com>; Mahnoor Yarkhan, Drama therapist – children in conflict <hakifadi2000@yahoo.com>; Tashi Choedup, Independent Consultant and Researcher <tashi.choedup18@gmail.com>
In case you feel that you are a victim of sexual harassment at HULF, please contact any member of the Internal Complaints Committee. Alternatively, you can email your complaint to icc.hydlab@gmail.com. We will help you out and guide you through the necessary procedures including counselling, and explain the means available for resolving the matter. Remember that you are entitled to your dignity as an individual and sexual harassment is a violation of your dignity . All proceedings will be carried out with the strictest confidentiality and with keeping your safety and security a priority.