Our team
The people behind Navyug
Navyug Sanskriti Foundation is spearheaded by Vikram Singh, who has spent over a decade in this community — he began teaching for free in 2013, and went on to help run Vanphool Pathshala, a free school under the flyover reaching nearly 300 children by 2020, which was demolished by the Public Works Department in 2023 (The Patriot). Shrishti Verma, a lawyer who also taught at Vanphool Pathshala, handles NSF's legal and documentation work — critical for children who dropped out without records. Smitha Cunigal and Mihir Bhaskar have both spent several years managing government-partnered research at J-PAL and LEAD at Krea, and advise Navyug on fundraising and strategy.
Vikram Singh
Vikram holds an M.A. in Hindi (IGNOU, 2022), a B.Ed. (Chaudhary Ranveer Singh University, 2018), and a B.A. Hindi Honours (Delhi University, Maharaja Agrasen College, 2016). He began teaching for free in 2013 and went on to help run Vanphool Pathshala, a free school in Yamuna Khadar that by 2020 was running classes under the flyover and reaching nearly 300 children — and which was demolished by the Public Works Department in January 2023 (press coverage: "Rising from the rubble", The Patriot). He also taught at Manthan Coaching Centre (2016) and Lord Shiva Public School (2018), and led or contributed to social-research fieldwork with the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), the Institute of Social Studies Trust (ISST), and Jamia Millia Islamia (a study on Covid-19's impact on migrants and their children's education, sponsored by the National Human Rights Commission).
In August 2020 he designed and managed a needs-assessment census of 1,500 households in Yamuna Khadar. His community organising track record includes running camps for voter ID, ration card, and Aadhaar applications; distributing ration kits during Covid-19 with Basti Suraksha Manch; running a temporary education centre for out-of-school children; and distributing mosquito nets and waterproof tarps ahead of monsoon season. He is fluent in Hindi and English.
Shrishti Verma
Shrishti is a lawyer who also taught at Vanphool Pathshala. She is the Trust's Settlor/Founder of record and handles NSF's legal and compliance work — registration, certifications, and the documentation casework that is often the biggest barrier for children who have dropped out without records.
Mihir Bhaskar
Mihir has an M.S. in Public Policy & Data Analytics from Carnegie Mellon (2021–23) and a B.A. in Economics from Cambridge (2013–16). He is a Senior Data Scientist at Stanford RegLab and previously spent four years at J-PAL South Asia (2017–2021), building an administrative-data research unit from 3 to 10 staff across 7 projects and 3 states. He has separately run need-based relief efforts in the Mayur Vihar/Yamuna Khadar area since 2020, benefiting 660 families.
Smitha Cunigal
Smitha has 8 years of development and public-policy research experience in South Asia, most recently as Research Manager at J-PAL South Asia (2022–2024), where she managed government-partnered randomised evaluations — including one on personalised, level-based teaching in government schools — and managed grants up to USD 976,000. She previously worked at LEAD at Krea (2017–2022) on financial-inclusion research.