Dripta studied Geography for B.A. from Santiniketan, India and completed her M.A. in geography in 2009.  She joined School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi, India for another master’s degree in planning, specializing in urban planning. Her thesis in M. Planning “ Planning interventions for an ethnic enclave, China Town, Kolkata” focused on the urban planning and legislative reforms to revitalize the community space.  Her paper “The disintegrating Chinese community in Kolkata, India: A question on the effectiveness of the 74th amendment” was selected for the poster presentation in the annual meeting of Society for Economic Anthropology- 2012, San Antonio.  Her interest in diaspora, ethnic identity has further expanded into the present Ph.D. topic “Whose city? Ethnic communities in Kolkata, India: An exploration into decentralization of urban governance system in preserving their cultural identity”. Dripta was granted a fellowship from the Graduate Academy of Heidelberg University for her Ph.D project in 2013 and is a doctoral student at the Heidelberg Graduate School for the Humanities and Social Sciences. Her interest area revolves around diaspora, multiculturalism and cultural landscape of cities.

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