Communications and Electronic Media Law and Policy in India

CASI Seminar
Vikram Raghavan
Senior Counsel, Middle East, North Africa and South Asia, Legal Vice Presidency, The World Bank
Gittis Hall 213, University of Pennsylvania Law School3443 Sansom StreetPhiladelphia, PA 19104

Vikram Raghavan is senior counsel in the World Bank’s Legal Vice-Presidency, where he works in two different practice groups. As a member of the East Asia and South Asia group, Mr. Raghavan is country lawyer for the World Bank’s operations in India, Myanmar, and Korea. In that capacity, he provides legal and transactional advice on a variety of constitutional, operational, and local law issues that arise in World Bank-financed projects in those areas.

Previously, he worked as country lawyer for World Bank portfolios in Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, and Pakistan. Most recently, he focused on Iraq, Iran, the West Bank, and Gaza.

In the Operations Policy practice group, Mr. Raghavan’s responsibilities include handling various legal and policy issues affecting post-conflict areas and fragile states. He serves on the World Bank’s Post Conflict Fund Committee. He also provides legal advice regarding development policy operations (formerly called structural adjustment operations) and breach-of-governmental-contract questions. Before joining the World Bank in 2001, Vikram Raghavan was an associate in the New York office of O’Melveny & Myers. There, he worked on several transactional, litigation, and international-arbitration matters. He is a graduate of the National Law School of India in Bangalore, and earned his masters in international law from NYU Law School. He is admitted to practice law in the State of New York. He is the author of a legal treatise: Communications Law in India: Legal Aspects of Telecom, Broadcasting, and Cable Services (LexisNexis 2006); and is presently working on a book about the drafting and adoption of the Indian Constitution and the founding of modern India. He and his friends have together created a blog on Indian law and legal developments: http://www.lawandotherthings.blogspot.com/.

 Co-sponsored by Center for Global Communication Studies at Annenberg and the Penn South Asia Law Student's Association (SALSA)

The Nand & Jeet Khemka Distinguished Lecture Series is an endowed public program of the Center for the Advanced Study of India (CASI). Launched in the 2007-08 academic year, and made possible through the generous support of the Nand & Jeet Khemka Foundation, the series brings renowned India specialists to the Penn community and serves as a critical forum for analyzing and understanding the complex economic, political, social, and cultural changes that the world’s largest democracy is experiencing, as well as the challenges that lie ahead.
The Saluja Global Fellows Program has been made possible by the generous gift from Vishal Saluja ENG’89 W’89. CASI was excited to launch the program during the 2022–23 academic year, coinciding with the Center’s 30th Anniversary. This new program enables CASI to invite eminent leaders and rising experts on contemporary India preferably from the fields of media, culture, law, and contemporary history to be in residence for one to two weeks at CASI.