Suhas Palshikar
Suhas Palshikar is an Indian Academic and social and political scientist. He is Director of Lokniti and was Professor in the Department of Politics and Public Administration at the Savitribai Phule Pune University from 1989 to 2016. He is also the Chief Editor of the journal Studies in Indian Politics an international peer reviewed journal brought out by Sage. He taught at the S P College, Pune for eleven years from 1978 to 1989, before joining the Department of Politics and Public Administration, Savitribhai Phule Pune University. He specialised in the areas of Political Process in India, Politics of Maharashtra, Political Sociology of Democracy
He has served as Associate Director on the ICSSR project on the Sixth Lok Sabha Elections in Maharashtra from 1980-81. His research projects have included 'Politics of Marginalized Groups: A Study of Aurangabad and Ahmednagar districts' - a UGC granted project completed in 2000 and another UGC major research project, Electoral Democracy and structures of Domination: A Study of Assembly Elections in Maharashtra-2009, (May 2009- April 2011). In the year 1999-2000 Professor Palshikar and the Dept. of Politics and Public Administration, University of Pune conducted a survey of around 7000 households for a project on Pune titled 'Pune: From City to Metropolis', under the Special Assistance Programme.
Professor Palshikar has been associated with the CSDS since 1995. He has assisted in the study of the Assembly Elections in Maharashtra in 1995 and has served as the State coordinator for Maharashtra in the National Election Studies in 1996, 1998 and 1999 organised by Lokniti. He was also the Joint coordinator in the State of Democracy in the State of Democracy in South Asia (SDSA) project conducted by Lokniti. As Chief Advisor (Political Science) along with Yogendra Yadav, he worked on the project of bringing out the class IX to XII political science text books for the NCERT.
He has written over a hundred articles and essays popular press in Marathi and English and over twenty long essays in Special Issues and Annual Numbers of Monthly and Annual Magazines in Marathi. He is a regular contributor in both International and national journals, books, magazines and popular newspapers. Apart from other important positions that he has held throughout his academic career, most lately Prof. Palshikar was a visiting professor at Brown India Initiative, Brown University, Providence, USA. . He has been teaching courses on Political Sociology, Indian Politics, Party System in India, Political Economy of India and Political Process in Maharashtra.