Manoj Parmar and Binti SIngh

Urban Stories of India

Manoj Parmar is the Director of Kamla Raheja Vidyanidhi Institute for Architecture and Environmental Studies (KRVIA) in Mumbai. He has been in practice in architecture and urban design since 1992, working on numerous private and public housing/institutional commissions across India as well as in Dubai, Malaysia, and Singapore. He has been actively involved in redevelopment projects across the city of Mumbai and contributed to development guidelines for slum redevelopment in its northern suburbs. His work was discussed at UDRI and CEPT Ahmedabad and he has lectured internationally, including at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and Cambridge University. His recent publications include “Smart City in India: Laboratory, Paradigm or Trajectory?” (co-authored with Binti Singh, 2019) and “Resilience and Southern Urbanism Towards a New Paradigm” (co-edited with Binti Singh, 2022).

Binti Singh is an urban sociologist and holds a Ph.D. (in urban studies) and an M.Phil. (in Planning and Development) from IIT Bombay. She is currently Dean (Research and Academic Development) at KRVIA. She is engaged in diverse international research programs and supervises PhD researchers in international universities including University of Virginia, US and United Nations University, Japan. As Associate Editor with Oxford Urbanists she has published “New Frontiers of Urban Theory - A global South Perspective”. Her books include “Culture, Place, Branding and Activism”, an ethnographic study on Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh, and “How Will India Fix Her Urban Future?”. Her articles regularly appear in Indian and international journals, including Domus India and BW Smart Cities.