Bio of the speaker

S. Irudaya Rajan, Professor at the Centre for Development Studies, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, has three decades of research and teaching experience. Dr. Rajan has worked closely with the Ministry of External Affairs (earlier Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs) and the Department of Non-Resident Keralite Affairs, Government of Kerala. He was the Chair Professor of the MOIA Research Unit on International Migration (RUIM) during 2006-2016. He has published extensively in national and international journals on social, economic, health and demographic facets of international and internal migration. He is the editor of two Annual series – India Migration Report and South Asia Migration report – as well as Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Migration and Development, brought out by Taylor and Francis.

Prof. Rajan has coordinated migration surveys in Kerala since 1998 (with Professor K C Zachariah), Goa migration survey 2008 and Tamil Nadu migration survey 2015. He played an instrumental role in conducting the Punjab migration survey 2009 and also the Gujarat Migration Survey 2011.

He has also undertaken projects on international migration with the European Union, International Labour Organization, International Development Research Centre, Canadian Institute of Health Research, World Bank, International Organization of Migration, South Asian Network of Economic Institutes (SANEI), Rockefeller Foundation, United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organizations (UNESCO) among others. He currently has projects with India Centre for Migration, UAE Exchange (Abu Dhabi) and Columbia University, USA.