My research operates within the area of information and communication technology for development (ICT4D), with a focus on the role of digital platforms in socio-economic development processes. I have conducted extensive work on the computerisation of India's main food security programme, the Public Distribution System (PDS), and on the adoption of ICTs in core aspects of the Indian public sphere including elections, rural employment guarantees and programmes of social protection. Two further areas of current research interest of mine are digital identity systems and the adoption of ICTs in contexts of humanitarian emergency, such as the current global refugee crisis.
My publications have appeared in scholarly journals such as World Development, Journal of Information Technology, Information Systems Journal, Oxford Development Studies, Information Technology for Development, Information Technologies and International Development, Information Technology & People, Big Data & Society, and the Economic and Political Weekly. I am Editor-In-Chief of Information Technology for Development, Senior Editor for the Electronic Journal of Information Systems in Developing Countries, and Guest Associate Editor for the Information Systems Journal.
I am Secretary and Chair Elect of the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) 9.4 Working Group on the Implications of Information and Digital Technologies for Development, a Distinguished Member of the Association for Information Systems (AIS), and a member of the ICT4D Collective. I am one of the winners of the AIS Mid-Career Award for the year 2023.
Most of my research is available on Researchgate, my updates can be followed on Twitter and my PhD thesis titled "Imagining the state through digital technologies: A case of state-level computerisation in the Indian Public Distribution System" (London School of Economics and Political Science, 2014) can be downloaded here. My research can also be found on Google Scholar and an updated CV (March 2024) is available here. I have a blog, Unfair ID, in which I narrate stories of digital identity at the human-technology interface.