Anurag Mehra

Professor, Department of Chemical Engineering

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Associate Faculty
Prof. Anurag Mehra is a Chemical Engineer. He joined the Department of Chemical Engineering at IIT Bombay in 1991 and, in 2016, became an Associate Faculty at the Centre for Policy Studies. He is currently the Professor in Charge of IIT Bombay’s Centre for Liberal Education. Prof. Mehra has been a Visiting Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge; he has also been associated with many other institutions in various capacities: Summer Visiting Professor at IIM Bangalore, Summer Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study of India (CASI) at the University of Pennsylvania, and a Visiting Scholar at the University of Groningen, The Netherlands. He has also been a Summer Visiting Scientist at Unilever. His research interests in engineering are in the broad areas of reaction engineering, surface science, and nanomaterials, and his work has been published extensively. He has won many awards such as the INSA Young Scientist Medal of the Indian National Science Academy, Associateship of the Indian Academy of Sciences, the Marie Curie Fellowship of the European Commission, and the Excellence in Teaching Award at IIT Bombay. He is a Fellow of the Indian National Academy of Engineering (INAE) and the National Academy of Sciences India (NASI). He has served as a member of the Department of Science & Technology (DST-SERB) Programme Advisory Committee on Chemical Engineering and was the Chair of the SERB Programme Advisory and Monitoring Committee on Carbon Sequestration. He has Chaired the SERB Committee on Early Career Research Awards and National Post-Doctoral Fellowship (Engineering Sciences) and was also a member of a sub-committee of the Planning Commission (12th Plan) on Student Financial Aid. He has also been a consultant to several industries. Prof. Mehra has an abiding interest in political and social issues relating to education, labour, science & technology, and the digital economy. He has been involved in supervising the Technology Development Supervised Learning (TDSL) projects at the Centre for Technology Alternatives for Rural Areas (CTARA). He brings these interests and professional experience to CPS. Holding several senior administrative positions at IIT Bombay, Prof. Mehra is responsible for initiating major administrative reforms in the Institute. He has headed the Computer Centre, the Department of Chemical Engineering, was the Professor In Charge of Administrative Planning & Services, and more.

Research Interests

Technology and SocietyDigital Societies
Education
PhD (Tech), Bombay University (1987)
MChemEngg, Bombay University (1985)
BTech Chemical Engineering, IIT Kanpur (1983)
Publications
New Draft S&T Policy Overestimates India’s Aptitude, Potential for Science Success , Jan 14 2021
At IITs, With Online Exams, Teachers Confront High-Tech Cheating , Jan 13 2021
The Digital Panopticon and How It Is Fuelled by Personal Data–II , Nov 6 2020
The Digital Panopticon and How It Is Fuelled by Personal Data , Nov 6 2020
What We At IITs Are Discovering About Online Classes , Oct 8 2020
The Good People V. Evil Elites: How a Personal Tragedy Acquired a Political Spin , Oct 6 2020
Impossible Things and What They Taught Me About TV News Shows , Sept 18 2020
The Self-Righteous Battles of ‘WhatsApp Scholars’ and What I Learned from Them , Aug 19 2020
Can The New NEP Really Reform Education In India?
India’s “Vaccine Games” On Covid-19 Come At Great Risk , July 16 2020
The Far From Magnificent Obsession With Ranks At IITs
होम्योपैथी के ज़रिये कोविड-19 से बचाव का दावा राहत नहीं चिंता की बात है
A Homeopathic Defence Against COVID-19 Is No Defence at All , June 14 2020
The Pragmatics of Online Teaching , June 4 2020
After Weeks Of Online Classes At IIT, Here’s The Truth , A June 2 2020
Troubling Symptoms: The COVID-19 Pandemic Could Help Create a Dystopian Surveillance Regime , June 1 2020
Contact Tracing, Location Data Markets and the Perils of Being Tracked , May 14 2020
Will Bluetooth and Aarogya Setu Allow Us to Safely Exit the COVID-19 Lockdown? , April 29 2020
IIT-Bombay’s Adaptation To The Lockdown – What Works And Doesn’t , April 7 2020
Social Media Needs To Be Abolished , April 2 2020
How Digital Media Weaponised Ignorance During a Pandemic , March 28 2020
Crowdsourcing “Knowledge” , Mar 6 2020
At IITs, 1-Cr Job Offers Are Hype, Ground Reality is Different , Dec 30 2019
Webs of Deceit: Alternative Facts, False Narratives and Toxic Politics , Dec 18 2019
Indian Universities And The Problematic Race For Eminence , Aug 13 2019
Higher Education Is No Wonderland, but Does the New Education Policy Know? , Jul 30 2019
Infocalypse now: How can media users protect themselves from the fake news superstorm? , Jul 26 2019
Draft Education Policy Fails to Effectively Address Rote Learning & Farcical Examinations Plaguing Indian School System , Jul 20 2019
4 Things Need To Urgently Fix In India’s Education System , Jul 10 2019
Technology as the Villain: The Political Economy of Digital Hate , Apr 28 2019
Pseudoscientific Claims Are Irrational – but That’s Not Their Biggest Danger , Apr 20 2019
Are we hurting learning and teaching by diverting funds from blackboards to digital boards? , Apr 08 2019
Before this Year’s Board Examinations, Learn the Real Reason India is a “Student Superpower” , Mar 1 2019
[VIDEO – Panel Discussion] Stressful Education – The Coaching Conundrum , Jan 19 2019
IIT-JEE – What Can We do to the “Toughest Examination in the World , Jan 14 2019
IIT-JEE Coaching Classes – A Dark Universe , Dec 31 2018
IIT-JEE Coaching – The Selling Of Fake Dreams , Dec 19 2018
Rethinking undergraduate education in the IITs , Aug 25 2014
Bapna, A., Garg, K., & Mehra, A., 2020 “Digital Divide and the Aakash Tablet” , Economic & Political Weekly, 55(10), 27.
Mehra, A., 2016, “The JEE conundrum revisited: a time for course correction” , Curr. Sci., 110(1), 18-22.
Mehra, A., 2012, “The JEE Conundrum” , Curr. Sci., 103(1), 29-35.
Bridging the Digital & Learning Divide in Education in Unlock 1.0 , June 10 2020
Special Invited Lecture: “The Dismantling of Public Institutions and the End of History: The Case of Education”, at the International Conference on “Institution, Structure & Organization in Globalizing India: Science & Technology, Economy & Society”, January 20-21, 2012, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay.
Projects
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