It has been more than a decade since Kankana has been associated with varied issues pertaining to human development. Her journey into the development sector began through volunteering with The Red Cross Society and The Helpage India, Maharashtra. Later, to develop a deeper comprehension of social inequality, poverty and human rights violation, she signed up for an honours course in Human Development in the final year of her Bachelor’s program at the JD Birla Institute, Jadavpur University Kolkata (2009-2010). The brief module on human development made her aware of socio-economic inequities and its impact on people. In order to develop an interdisciplinary perspective and to understand better the theories and challenges of development; she completed Masters in Human Development in 2012 by standing first in order of merit from Jadavpur University, Kolkata.

During her course of studies, her visits to various non-government organizations (Indian Institute of Cerebral Palsy, SOS Village) helped her acquire practical experience on issues such as disability, child rights which was complemented by her classroom knowledge. During this time, she also had the opportunity to intern with Prayasam (NGO working with children and adolescents in West Bengal) was engaged in developing IEC on gender rights, audio visual materials for school goings.

Kankana’s interest in gender and development later culminated in her Master’s project on women’s access to higher education and impediments faced by them and varied issues of agency and choice of urban women professionals in their domestic spheres. Her interests in gender and development encouraged her to be associated with Jadavpur University and Administrative Staff College of India, Hyderabad as a researcher. As a research, she has worked on a range of projects such as microfinance and women empowerment, gender audit of higher educational institutions, single women and their rights, gender sensitivity of print media, adolescent health and skill development.

While gender has been the focal point in many of her past assignments, she took keen interest in other aspects of human development such as health, human rights and skill training. Kankana has published a paper on ‘India and Bangladesh plans and Policies Influencing the Participation of women in Technical and Vocational Education: A Comparative study’, with MAKAIAS in 2017. This was followed by another working paper (with support fromMAKAIAS) entitled ‘Building entrepreneurs and Changing Lives: Role of skill Training on the lives of Tribal Women of Arunachal Pradesh’.

Kanakana has also been involved in several administrative activities like networking, digital programming, and fund-raising for organisations. She has co-ordinated events like conferences and seminars for national and international research institutes. She also has garnered experience of conducting workshops and training programs on gender sensitization and public health.

She enjoys networking with people and working on a range of development issues. Given her experience and expertise, Kankana can comfortably play the role of both researcher and administrator.