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RESEARCH REVIEW BOARD

ARMMAN focuses on scaling cost-effective, evidence-based mobile health (mHealth) solutions to provide critical preventive care information to pregnant women, mothers, and children, while training health workers. By leveraging technology, partnerships, and innovative approaches, we aim to create meaningful social impact. Our commitment to systematic research helps build evidence for scaling interventions in similar contexts across India and beyond, while contributing to the growing field of mHealth in maternal and child health, especially in resource-limited settings. Insights from our ground teams highlight the need to address emerging challenges and opportunities in this evolving space.
Ethics Review Board
Scientific Review Board

The objective of ARMMAN Ethics Review Board (AERB) is to ensure members of the ARMMAN team are well versed with research ethics discourse and the obligations they have towards communities they engage with through programs, interventions and research. Another objective is to ensure that rights and safety of participating communities and individuals is safeguarded in compliance with the national and international research ethics guidelines and relevant regulatory frameworks.AERB Secretariat aims to ensure an appropriate and sustainable system for reviewing the scientific merit and ethical soundness of all research, as per the guidelines laid out by the Indian Council of Medical Research’s National Ethical Guidelines for Biomedical and Health Research Involving Human Participants (ICMR, 2017). ARMMAN’s registration with the Department of Health Research, Ministry of Health & Family Welfare (Government of India) has been approved. Registeration No. -EC/NEW/INST/2021/2064

Dr. Sunita Bandewar
Chairperson

Dr. Sunita Bandewar obtained her Doctorate in Anthropology from the University of Pune, Post-doctoral fellowship from McLaughlin, and trained in Bioethics as part of her Master of Health Science (MHSc) degree from the University of Toronto, supported by an International Fellowship from the Fogarty International Centre, National Institutes of Health (NIH), USA. She is affiliated with the Health, Ethics, and Law Institute (HEaL Institute) for Training, Research and Advocacy at Forum for Medical Ethics Society (FMES), Mumbai, as Director and General Secretary (FMES) since 2015. She is part of the core editorial team of the Indian Journal of Medical Ethics (IJME). She is also the founding trustee of Vidhayak Trust, Pune (2015). She is associated with the civil society based national and regional level networks in the arena of health and civil rights.
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Dr Vijayaprasad Gopichandran
Social Scientist

Dr. Vijayaprasad Gopichandran obtained his Doctor of Medicine from Christian Medical College, Vellore and holds a Ph.D. in Public Health Ethics from School of Public Health, SRM University, Chennai. He serves as the editor of the esteemed "Indian Journal of Medical Ethics." With extensive experience on various ethics committees, he is a valuable resource in the field. He worked as an Assistant Professor, Community Medicine in ESIC Medical College and Hospital, Chennai. He made significant contributions to public health initiatives, particularly those focused on women in rural communities. He has a robust publication record, including pivotal works on ethical issues mHealth, monitoring and evaluation frameworks in public health, and the ethics of implementation research, reflecting his deep expertise and commitment to advancing public health ethics. He has also developed and wrote the curriculum, course and MOOC on ethics of implementation research for the WHO/TDR.
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Dr. Manas Ranjan Pradhan
Basic Medical Scientist

Manas Pradhan earned his Master of Arts in Sociology from Ravenshaw University in Cuttack. He subsequently obtained a Master of Philosophy and a Doctor of Philosophy in Population Studies from the International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS) in Mumbai.
He is a member of the IIPS Student Research Ethics Committee and has been dedicated to teaching, monitoring, and evaluation as a researcher at IIPS since 2005. Additionally, he serves as Associate Editor for Reproductive Health (BMC, Springer Nature Journal). Dr. Pradhan has a substantial publication record in public health, contributing to various topics, including reproductive health, child nutrition, and maternal healthcare. His research has been featured in respected journals, reflecting his commitment to advancing knowledge and addressing critical health issues.

Dr. Monty Khajanchi
Clinician & Co-Chairperson

Dr. Monty obtained his Bachelor of Medicine & Surgery from Maharashtra University Health Sciences and a Diplomate of National Board (DNB) Surgery through the National Board of Examination (Master of Surgery). Since 2010, he has been affiliated with Seth G.S. Medical College and KEM Hospital as Assistant Professor, General Surgery. He is a member of their Institutional Ethics Board for Clinical trial in Bioavailability and Bioequivalence studies & Biomedical and Health Research.
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Ms. Tejal Barai Jaitly
Member Secretary

Tejal Barai Jaitly currently is General Manager-Monitoring and Research Ethics at ARMMAN. She is responsible for operationalizing and institutionalizing ARMMAN's Ethics Review Board and Scientific Review Board; along with documentation, research, Monitoring & Evaluation processes and outcomes with an aim to enhance ARMMAN's advocacy endeavours. She has studied Microbiology and completed a Master's in Political Science from the University of Mumbai. She is skilled at public health analysis, strategizing, problem solving, review and monitoring. She had pivotal role in the formulation of “Ethical Guidelines in Social Science Research in Health” (NCESSRH –CEHAT, 2000), the first of its kind in India. Her other areas of interest include gender-based violence, universal health care and maternal health. She is the co-editor of two books; “Seen, but not heard: India’s marginalized, neglected and vulnerable children” (Kanika Satyanand and Tejal Barai Jaitly, VHAI, 2003) and “Ethics in Health Research: A Social Science Perspective” (Amar Jesani and Tejal Barai-Jaitly, CSER, 2005).
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Ms. Ujwala Kadrekar
Legal Expert

Ujwala Kadrekar is a Lawyer and has acquired a Masters in Social Work. Since 2007, she has engaged with many prestigious organisations in various capacities. She comes with a unique blend of expertise in law, research, M&E, and training. She has worked extensively on legal matters pertaining to domestic violence, sexual abuse, and legal provisions advocacy. She has served as a Gender Consultant with Maharashtra State Commission for Women, Senior Legal Consultant and Director (training) for the Lawyers Collective Women's Rights Initiative, Consultant to United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), UN Women and Oxfam and as visiting faculty at College of Social Work Nirmala-Niketan and worked with Seeds of Awareness, Research Centre for Women Studies and TISS.
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Ms. Amita Jadhav
Community Expert

Amita Jadhav has a Master's degree in Social Work from SNDT University and a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Mumbai. She is a part-time fieldwork supervisor at the Department of Social Work at TISS, Mumbai. She is also associated with Manas Foundation, where she works with the tribal community in Karjat Tehsil of Raigad District, making tribal women aware of their rights and increasing their participation at various levels along with initiating actions for individual and collective change.
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Ms. Prachi Avalaskar
Alternate Member Secretary

Prachi Avlaskar is currently working as a Sr. Research Associate with ARMMAN. She has completed her Master of Science (M.Sc) in Health Sciences from Savitribai Phule Pune University. She has experience working with different non-profit organizations such as Center for Enquiry into Health and Allied Themes (CEHAT), Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), MUSKAAN, Deenanath Mangeshkar Hospital and Research Center (Pune). She has experience working on issues like Violence against Women, Child Sexual Abuse, Tuberculosis and more. Her expertise lies in liasoning with different stakeholders, training, coordination of activities for program implementation and research.
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The brainstorming of several conceptual, substantive and operational matters within the organisation led to recognizing the need for the formation of ARMMAN Scientific Review Board along with the Ethics Review Board.The Scientific Review Board (ASRB) consists of multi-disciplinary experts to provide scientific guidance and direction to ARMMAN regarding a thorough review of all research proposals, project reports, and other scientific documentation.

Discussions on various conceptual, substantive, and operational matters within the organisation highlighted the need to establish the ARMMAN Scientific Review Board alongside the Ethics Review Board. The Scientific Review Board (ASRB) consists of multi-disciplinary experts to provide scientific guidance and direction to ARMMAN regarding a thorough review of all research proposals, project reports, and other scientific documentation.

MR. ASHISH SRIVASTAVA
Member

Ashish Srivastava has completed his B.Tech. from IIT (BHU) and Masters from IIIT (Bengaluru). He also holds a post-graduate certification in Economics from the University of London. Mr. Srivastava is a leader and strategist with extensive experience in using technology for social impact, particularly in health, child welfare, urban governance, and defence in partnership with government agencies. With over thirty years in the IT industry, he has managed international businesses and led innovative technology projects. Ashish serves on the board of Digital Health Associates. He has recently served as head of an AI company as well as a Senior Advisor to IISc AI and Robotics Park for Telecom and AI projects. He has also led the AI & Digital lab at CSTEP, a think tank focused on technology and policy, creating population scale healthcare solutions using AI and Digital.

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Dr. SUDHA RAMANI
Member

Dr Ramani has over 15 years of work experience in research pertaining to health policy and systems, qualitative evaluations of complex public health programs, and teaching/training personnel on health systems thinking and research methods.

She has consulted and worked with organizations including the Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI) and its allied institutes in Delhi, Hyderabad and Bangalore, the Society for Nutrition Education and Health Action, Mumbai, Oxford Policy Management, New Delhi, and the Health Systems Transformation Platform. Until 2024, she worked as a public health specialist with the India Primary Healthcare Support Initiative, Johns Hopkins India Pvt Ltd. She is a member of the Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee at the Alliance of Health Policy and Systems Research, World Health Organisation.

Sudha has several peer-reviewed publications in eminent journals, including The Lancet Global Health and South East Asia, and serves as an associate editor in two international journals—Health Policy and Planning (LSHTM) and International Journal of Equity in Health (BMC).

Dr. SOUMITRA GHOSH
Member

He has over 16 years (post PhD) of experience in carrying out policy-focused research at national and international academic institutions on some of the topics like access to health insurance programmes, issues related to health service delivery including user-charges, social determinants of diseases, inequality in health and health care, medical impoverishment, impact evaluation of health insurance programmes, economic costs of NCDs, universal health care, living conditions of tea garden workers, health and nutritional status of tribal populations, social exclusion, and new health financing arrangements and access to medicine.

He was awarded Yusuf Hamied Fellowship for 2022 at Center for Health Policy and Management, Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health. In 2015-16, he was awarded Erasmus Mundus Post Doctoral Fellowship at Department of Economics and Business Economics, Aarhus University, Denmark. Dr. Ghosh was a recipient of University of Hawaii fellowship for participating at the Seminar on Health Systems at East West Center, Hawaii, U.S.A during the summer of 2010, a Visiting Scholar at Center for Population and Development Studies, Harvard University in 2009. In 2003, he was awarded UGC-JRF for doctoral studies (2004-2008) and in 2003, Government of India Fellowship (2003-04) for pursuing MPS.

Dr. Ghosh received the Best Poster Award by Social Science and Medicine (Elsevier) at Health Systems in Asia conference at National University of Singapore during December 13-16, 2013.

MR. VIRUPAX N. RANNBENNUR
Member

Virupax N. Rannbennur has a Postgraduate degree in Statistics from Karnataka University and Masters in Population Sciences from International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS), Mumbai. He works as a Senior Technical Advisor SI at FHI 360/Epic Global that implements programmes across 30 countries. He has more than 30 years of experience in public health, including programme planning, developing strategic information systems, research studies and evaluation of community-based programmes. He has developed an online system that could collect data for the real time use by the program implementers. He has worked with major international entities in public health such as International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), Ford Foundation, United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) and with other international, national and local donors.

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DR. SMRATI TIWARI
Member

Dr. Smrati Tiwari is a practicing doctor trained in General Medicine from the University of Mumbai. She is an Associate Professor of Medicine at Seth G S Medical College, Mumbai. She served as the IEC Member for almost seven years at Seth G S Medical College until 2022.  She served as member of Severe adverse events subcommittee of ethics committee till 2022, PIMMC and curriculum committee at Seth GSMC currently.  She is also nodal officer for Integrated Disease Surveillance Program appointed by the institute. She has conducted several clinical trials and has several publications to her accolades of achievements. She has a keen passion and interest in infectious diseases and pursuit of research in this domain.
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Documents & Forms ˅

Documents & Forms

Name Download
Standard Operating Procedures - AERB Download
Guidelines for proposal submission Download
Checklist for researchers prior to submission Download
Form 1 Application for Stage 1 Review: Prior to Data Collection Download
Form 2 Informed Consent Process and form Download
Form 3 Request for Exemption from Ethics Review Download
Form 4 Application form for annual reviews Download
Form 5 Adverse events reporting form Download
Form 6 To request change in protocol or consent procedures add this Download

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Second Floor, Advance House, Plot-A, ARK Industrial Estate Compound, Makwana Road, Marol Naka, Andheri (East), Mumbai – 400059