Nilesh Singit

I currently serve as a Distinguished Research Fellow at the Centre for Disability Studies, NALSAR University of Law. My work there focuses on accessibility under the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016. I contribute to research and institutional reporting connected to matters before the Supreme Court of India, including accessibility issues arising from Rajive Raturi v. Union of India and Nilesh Singit v. Union of India. This engagement involves developing evidence-based inputs on accessibility standards, compliance frameworks, and normative benchmarks for the built environment, where legal principle meets material reality.

Alongside academic and institutional engagements, I maintain an independent consulting practice as an Accessibility Strategist, advising public bodies, infrastructure projects, and organisations on architectural and physical accessibility. My work includes large-scale site audits, retrofit planning, compliance roadmaps, and strategic guidance for capital projects. I have worked across transport systems, campuses, public buildings, and heritage structures, with a consistent emphasis on durability, feasibility, and the legal defensibility of accessibility measures.

My recent work also engages with technology and artificial intelligence from a disability perspective, focusing on bias, safeguards, and governance rather than technical novelty. Through research and advisory initiatives, including The Bias Pipeline, I examine how automated systems and digital infrastructures can either reproduce exclusion or be deliberately designed to reduce it.

I serve on the Supreme Court of India Committee on Accessibility, have advised multiple public institutions, and contribute to policy frameworks adopted across states. I accept selected invitations for lectures, workshops, and policy dialogues where engagement supports institutional learning, evidence-led reform, and thoughtful approaches to accessibility, design, and governance.

Beyond work, I draw on cinema and storytelling as spaces for reflection on empathy, transformation, and social change. My enduring concern is with building a civic culture in which accessibility is embedded in governance itself, rather than appended later as accommodation.