Prof. Vinod Pavarala

Key Note Speaker

Prof. Vinod Pavarala is Head of the Department of Communication and UNESCO Chair on Community Media at the Department of Communication, University of Hyderabad. For over a decade, through his research and policy advocacy, he has played a significant role in furthering the discourse on democratization of airwaves in India and elsewhere. His much reviewed book, co-authored with Kanchan K. Malik, Other Voices: the struggle for community radio in India (Sage, 2007) documents community-based efforts across India to carve out an alternative public sphere. In the last four years, the UNESCO Chair, the only one of its kind in the world, has been working not only in South Asia, but also, more recently, in East Africa, and contributed to policy advocacy in Europe as well. He serves on the editorial boards of many international journals in the field and furthers communication education in several institutions in an advisory capacity. 

Prof. Pavarala has dual masters in Sociology and Communication and a Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh (USA). He taught at the University of Pittsburgh, Virginia Tech (Blacksburg, VA), and Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay, before joining the University of Hyderabad, one of India’s top- ranked institutions, in 1995. At the University of Hyderabad, apart from heading the Department of Communication, he has also been the Dean of the Sarojini Naidu School of Arts & Communication and Director of International Affairs.