Biography of the Speaker :
Ramu Manivannan is currently Professor and Head of the Department of Politics & Public Administration, University of Madras. He taught in Hindu College, Delhi University as well as in the Department of Political Science, North Campus, Delhi University for over eighteen years before joining the Uni versity of Madras.

He was a Fellow of the United Nations University, Tokyo, Japan. He has been working with the refugees from Tibet, Burma and Sri Lanka for over two decades in the areas of peace, education and development.

He has founded fifteen non-formal schools for the children from tribal areas, stone quarry areas and the weavers’ community before building the school for poor children in Kurumbapalayam village in Vellore district of Tamil Nadu.

He has published seven books and several articles both in India and abroad including Asian Future: Dialogues for Change (co-edited with Pracha Hutanuwatr), Zed Books, London.

He is a trainer in holistic education and nonviolent conflict resolution. He has been the Visiting Professor at the Department of Southeast Asian Studies, University of Passau, Germany(2014), Department of Political Science, University of Paris-8 (Universite Paris 8), France (2016) and the Centre for International Studies, National Chengchi University, Taipei, Taiwan (2018).

You can visit www.freedomahead.org to view a documentary film FREEDOM AHEAD that presents the work and vision of Ramu Manivannan on education, development and democracy. He has been engaged in developing an alternate approach to grassroots based participant-research and teaching oriented MULTIVERSITY.