Notable alumni Notable alumni of CDS are alphabetically listed below: Ashoka Mody – Visiting Professor, Princeton University Haseeb Drabu – Finance Minister, J&K Mihir Shah – Former Member, Planning Commission, New Delhi Rakesh Basant – Professor, IIM- Ahmedabad Sanjaya Baru – Honorary Fellow, Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi T. T. Sreekumar – Professor, National University of Singapore (NUS) T. M. Thomas Isaac – Finance Minister, Govt. of Kerala* Research Culture and Development: Studies under this theme have largely been historical. They explore the cultural and ideological bases of development in Kerala and the shifts in culture and ideology that shape particular development outcomes. The history of the shaping of public consent for state-sponsored artificial birth-control, the discursive dimensions of community assertion in development, the sub-nationalist ideology bolstered by developmentalism forming the basis of post-independence Kerala, and the discursive dimensions of gender and development have been actively explored at CDS. These studies have mostly relied on archival research and importantly, textual analysis, as their principal methods. Essentially, they represent interdisciplinary research at CDS which has appeared in a whole range of internationally and nationally renowned research journals across the social sciences and humanities. They examine the intertwining of development, politics, culture, and social institutions in Kerala that significantly shape the people's well-being. Other studies include those on the cultural and historical aspects of women's mobility into politics and paid work. Recent studies include those of the impacts of extraneous cultural flows that shaped Kerala's specific historical experience of socio-political change in the twentieth century facilitated by mobility across colonial and post colonial geographies. Decentralization and Governance: Since the 1990s when the 73rd and 74th Amendments of the Indian Constitution came into force, decentralisation and local governance have been crucial to questions of welfare and development in India. This coincided with an interest in developing planning from below in ways that deepened democracy in Kerala, and with accelerated urban expansion in Kerala and elsewhere. Also, the coming of decentralised democracy meant the expansion of opportunities for women, both in the elected local bodies through reservations and in self-help groups. Research at CDS has followed these processes from different disciplinary perspectives and different methodological perspectives. Major projects that focused on local level development since the 1990s have been carried out. Studies have ranged from changing institutional structures of local governance, welfare programmes and redistribution, social security, infrastructural development, to local government finances.