Rashmi Doraiswamy

Rashmi Doraiswamy studied Russian language and literature at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.  Her doctoral thesis was on Mikhail Bakhtin, the Russian philosopher. She is Professor at the Academy of International  Studies, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. Her writings on literature and cinema have been published in prestigious Indian and foreign publications. She has participated in national and international seminars on cultural issues and has served on several statutory and non-statutory film festival and critics juries in India (including the national award critic, documentary and feature film juries) and abroad. She was the recipient of the National Award for the Best Film Critic in 1994. She was awarded the MAJLIS research fellowship in 1999 for a project entitled ‘Changing Narrative Strategies of Hindi Cinema’.  She has lectured and written extensively on cinema, literature and cultural issues. For many years she was on the Guest Faculty of the Mass Communication and Research Centre at JMI where she taught a course on Film Appreciation. She was Coordinator of the UGC Central Asian Studies Programme at the Academy of International Studies since it was set up in 2007 to 2016. She has organized and been co-organiser of workshops, international and national conferences, many of which have been on Russia, Central Asia, Eurasia and Soviet Union. She was invited by the Japan Foundation to participate in a 15-day group tour of  film institutions in Japan in October, 1999. She was invited by the administration of the President of the Russian Federation to attend the Russian Literary Meeting at PFU, Moscow on 21 November 2013. She was also invited by the Prime Minister of Kyrgyzstan to the 3^rd Issyk Kul Forum, in October, 2018. She was International Observer for the Presidential Elections in Uzbekistan in December 2007 and 2015. She delivered the Presidential Address at the Indian History Congress in the Section ‘Countries Other than India’ in December 2017 at Jadavpur University. She was Honorary Deputy Director of the Academy of Third World Studies from October 2005 to May 2007. She has been Officiating Director of the AIS since August 2015.