Dr Apurba Kundu

As Deputy Dean (Education), Apurba is responsible for quality assurance and enhancement, and the student experience for a faculty with close to 6,000 students in four schools, three research institutes and a language unit spread across two campuses and four UK partner colleges.

These responsibilities include the content, delivery and assessment of our undergraduate and postgraduate taught courses; new course development and approval; student retention, progression and awards; student complaints and discipline; student welcome and induction; learning and teaching innovation; internal and external audits and accrediting bodies; and responses to internal and external student surveys.

[email protected]

Background

After growing up in Jamaica, India, Ghana and the USA, Apurba came to the UK to study for a BA (Joint Honours) English Literature/Philosophy at the University of Leeds. He then undertook an MA in International Affairs at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in Bologna and Washington DC, before returning to England to gain a PhD in Government at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE).

Prior to joining Anglia Ruskin University in 2009, Apurba was Associate Dean (Learning and Teaching) of the University of Bradford School of Computing, Informatics and Media, and a senior lecturer in the Bradford Media School. He also has lectured at De Montfort University, Leicester, and Chatham University, Pittsburgh; and served as Ruth Glass Memorial Fellow at the LSE Development Studies Institute, and Senior Research Fellow at the European Institute for Asian Studies, Brussels.

From April 2018 to August 2019, Apurba served as Acting Dean with responsibility for leading and managing the strategy and operations of the faculty as they pertain to its students, staff, and resource. This included a major restructuring of the faculty involving the creation of new schools, movement of departments and courses, and significant staffing changes.

In addition to his work as Deputy Dean (Education), Apurba undertakes administrative, editorial, refereeing and research duties of national and international significance. He is a member of the Contemporary South Asia (Routledge) international editorial board (having been the journal's editor from 1998-2007), and Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Peer Review College. Apurba has served as a Quality Assurance (QAA) Institutional Reviewer and is currently an Advance HE Race Equality Charter panellist.

Apurba has undertaken a number of funded research projects, most recently as principal investigator of the £411k EPSRC-funded project entitled 'Fair Tracing': empowering producers and consumers by providing enriched information about the roots of goods and services'; later featured as part of the 'Impact! Exhibition' at the Royal College of Art (London) in 2010. Apurba's teaching, writing and research interests include civil-military relations, the politics and security of South Asia, and cyberpsychology.

Together with Dr Sally Everett, Apurba co-founded what is now the Race and Ethnic Equality Network (REEN) that aims to promote equality of opportunity for ethnic minority staff at the university, and continues to serve as one of its co-leads. A significant goal was recently realised when Anglia Ruskin University earned an Advance HE Race Equality Charter Bronze Award.

Selected recent publications

‘Operation Blue Star and Sikh and Non-Sikh Indian Military Officers’, Pacific Affairs (Vancouver) 67:1 Spring 1994, pp 46-69, ISSN 0030851X; reprinted in K. Roy and S. Gates (ed), Unconventional Warfare in South Asia, 1947 to the Present (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011) ISBN 9780754629771.

‘The Fair Tracing project: mapping a traceable value chain for Indian coffee’ (with Ashima Chopra) Contemporary South Asia (Taylor & Francis) 17:2 June 2009, 213-223, ISSN 09584935.

‘The Fair Tracing project: digital tracing technology and Indian coffee’ (with Ashima Chopra) Contemporary South Asia (Taylor & Francis) 16:2 June 2008, pp 217-230, ISSN 09584935.

‘Curry Powder’ in S. Sayyid, N. Ali, V.S. Kalra (eds) A Postcolonial People: South Asians in Britain (London: Hurst & Co, 2006), pp 72-73, ISBN 1850657971.

‘The National Democratic Alliance and National Security,’ in K. Adeney and L. Saez (eds), Coalition Politics and Hindu Nationalism (London: Routledge, 2005) pp 212-236, ISBN 0415359813.

‘How will the return of the Congress Party affect Indian Foreign and Security Policy?’ European Institute for Asian Studies Policy Brief (Brussels) 04:02 June 2004, pp 1-4.

‘India’s National Security under the BJP: “Strong at Home, Engaged Abroad”’, European Institute for Asian Studies Briefing Paper (Brussels) 04:02 June 2004, pp 1-36, ISBN 9074104738.

‘India’s National Security under the BJP: “Strong at Home, Engaged Abroad”’, EurAsia Bulletin (Brussels) 8:3&4, March-April 2004, pp 13-16.

‘Outcomes and implications of the twelfth SAARC summit in Islamabad’ (with Tariq Fatemi, P.K. Singh, Maudud Ali, Narayan S. Thapa and C.R. Jayasinghe), Contemporary South Asia (Taylor & Francis) 13:1 March 2004, pp 79-90, ISSN 09584935.

‘India as a Regional Power—Superpower of the Future?’ in Subrata K. Mitra and Bernd Rill (eds), Indien heute: Brennpunkte seiner Innenpolitik: Argumente und Materialien zum Zeitgeschehen 41 [India Today: Hot Issues in Domestic Politics: Arguments and Materials on Contemporary Issues 41] (Munich: Hanns-Seidel-Stiftung, 2003), pp 161-182, ISBN 3887952669.

'Chima Okorie's "Passage to India"' (with Novy Kapadia), Contemporary South Asia (Taylor & Francis) 10:2 July 2002, pp 265-272, ISSN 09584935.

‘Corporate Capitalism in Contemporary South Asia: Realities and Interpretations’ (with Ananya Mukherjee Reed), Contemporary South Asia (Taylor & Francis) 9:2 July 2000, pp 127-139, ISSN 09584935.

Militarism in India: The Army and Civil Society in Consensus (London: Tauris Academic Publishers, 1998; New York: St Martins Press, 1998; New Delhi: Viva Books Private Limited, 1999) pp 230, ISBN 1860643183.

‘Nuclear Testing and Indian Military Officers’, BASAS Bulletin, 2:6 May 1998, pp 5-6.

‘Commissioned Officers in India and the Emergency, 1975-1977’, Contemporary Political Studies 1996: Volume 1 (Belfast: The Political Studies Association of the United Kingdom, 1996) pp 537-545, ISBN 095231505X.

‘Friend or Foe? Commissioned Indian Officers and Indira’s Emergency Rule’, Defence Today (Meerut) 4:2 April-June 1996, pp 281-290, ISSN 09714197 & ISBN 8185823197.

‘The Attitudes of Commissioned Indian Officers towards the Indian Nationalist Movement’, University of Bradford Department of Social and Economic Studies Working Paper (Bradford) number 95.7, 1995, pp. 1-28.

‘Commissioned Indian Officers and the Indian National Armies of World War II’, Defence Today (Meerut) 2:2 May 1994, pp 109-120, ISSN 09714197 & ISBN 818582303X.

‘Operation Blue Star and Sikh and Non-Sikh Indian Military Officers’, Pacific Affairs (Vancouver) 67:1 Spring 1994, pp 46-69, ISSN 0030851X.

‘The Ayodhya Aftermath: Hindu Versus Muslim Violence in Britain’, Immigrants and Minorities (London) 13:1 March 1994, pp 26-47, ISSN 02619288.

‘Commissioned Indian Officers and the Independence Movement during the Interwar Years’, Defence Today (Meerut) 2:1 February 1994, pp 127-134, ISSN 09714197 & ISBN 8185823022.

‘UK Asians’ Reaction to the Destruction of Ayodhya’s Babri Masjid’, Defence Today (Meerut) 1:2 November 1993, pp 88-103, ISSN 09714197 & ISBN 8185823014.

‘The Indian Armed Forces’ Sikh and Non-Sikh Officers’ Opinions of Operation Blue Star’, Punjab Research Group Discussion Series Paper (Coventry) number 39, 1992, pp. 1-33.

‘The Indian Army’s Continued Dependence on Martial Races’ Officers’, Indian Defence Review (New Delhi) July 1991, pp 69-84, ISSN 09702512.

‘Civil-Military Relations in India: Why No Coup?’ Asian Affairs (Dhaka) 7:3 July-Sept 1985, pp 1-22.