Dr. R. Sreedher
Director, CEMCA

Dr. R. Sreedher, took over as Director of the Commonwealth Educational Media Centre for Asia (CEMCA) from 1 February 2007.

Dr. Sreedher's previous assignment was Project Director, Local Voices Project of Internews in Chennai, in India.

Prior to that he was Director of the Educational Multimedia Research Centre, IIT campus Roorkee and also at Anna University Chennai. Previously he was Director of the Electronic Media Production Centre at the Indira Gandhi National Open University, India. And before joining IGNOU, Dr. Sreedher worked in various capacities with India's national broadcasters, All India Radio and Doordarshan.

Dr. Sreedher's interest in distance education began when he was heading the science unit of All India Radio Chennai in 1980 where he planned and produced the AIR School of Continuing Science Education. While serving as the chief of the educational broadcast wing of the All India Radio Network, he planned and executed mega radio science serials for children simultaneously in all the 18 recognised languages of India. The project involved the use of text materials, audio programmes and do-it-yourself activity kits. These serials had a strong component of 'live' interactivity. Dr. Sreedher was the one who introduced Interactive Radio Counselling for IGNOU in 1998. He later extended it to more than 180 Radio stations in the country. He was the architect of India's 24 hour educational TV and Radio channels which were named Gyan Darshan and Gyan Vani. He also pioneered campus community radio in the country in India.

Dr. Sreedher is a recipient of many national and international awards. He was a finalist in the World Technology Network Awards in the category of education for the year 2002. He received the National Award for Science Popularisation through Electronic Media from Government of India in 1991. He was also awarded the Akashvani Radio award for Innovative radio programmes four times by All India Radio.

Dr. Sreedher has also written popular science books in Tamil. His work involving WorldSpace satellite radio, entitled 'Radio Vision', has been published by UNESCO. He has also worked as a consultant in Afghanistan helping to revive its Educational Radio and Television Centre and has been a UNICEF consultant in community radio.

Dr. Sreedher brings his experience and expertise to CEMCA and hopes to take it forward to newer heights. He hopes to rope in more like minded partners.

Mr. R. Thyagarajan joined CEMCA, New Delhi on February 01, 2011 as the Head, Administration & Finance for CEMCA. He previously worked as the Deputy Registrar, Establishment of Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) joined the service in Indian Audit & Accounts Department in 1979 and worked as Faculty Member in National Academy of Audit & Accounts, Shimla in 1993. He assumed the charge of Assistant Registrar in 1993 in IGNOU and Deputy Registrar since July 2005.

During his service in IGNOU, he associated himself with a World Bank project, Distance Education Programme - District Primary Education Programme for about five years as Administrative Cum Finance Officer. He worked as Finance Officer of Institute of Applied Manpower Research, Planning Commission, Government of India for two years. He was associated with Staff Selection Commission, Government of India, a premier recruitment agency for Government organizations for two years. He has contributed substantially in the field of Administration, Human Resource Development and Finance over a period of 30 years.

Rukmini Vemraju comes to CEMCA as Programme Officer from TALEEM Research Foundation, Ahmedabad, a literary, scientific educational society and trust engaged in social science, media and educational technology research. With a background in communication and educational technology.

Vemraju brings with her a varied experience in educational technology design, development and research. She has a masters in Communication and Journalism from Osmania University, Hyderabad and about twenty years of varied experience in the field of communication spanning advertising, creative writing, educational product development design., research and project management.

Vemraju is a keen learner of Indian languages, a movie buff and enjoys Indian classical music and Urdu ghazals.

Dr. Nutan Bharati joins CEMCA, as programme Officer Education, on February 01, 2012.

Dr. Bharati started her career as a Research Scientist with the Consortium for Educational Communication (http://www.cec-ugc.org), India in 1995 and later joined the Faculty of Education, University of Delhi as a Lecturer. In the recent years she has been working as an Associate Professor with the School of Distance Learning at the NMIMS University(http://nmims.edu), MuDr. Nutan Bharatimbai, and as an Expert with MKCL, Pune (http://www.mkcl.org/net). Since 2009, she has worked as Associate Professor with NIIT Ltd., New Delhi. 

She has presented her views across seminars and conferences about realizing optimization of ICT for quality education. Capacity building through infrastructure development, programme design, team development and innovative initiatives has been long lasting perspective in realizing synergy across disciplines.

She hopes to bring together learning minds and e-resources through open channels for communities growing and supported with organizational zeal

Ms. Monica Sharma, Administrative Assistant