BINA AGARWAL is Professor of Economics at the Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi University. Educated at the Universities of Cambridge and Delhi she has held distinguished positions at many universities in the USA and UK and lectured world-wide. She was Harvard’s first Daniel Ingalls Visiting Professor and a research fellow at the Ash Institute, Kennedy School of Government. She has taught at Delhi, Harvard, Michigan (Ann Arbor), and the University of Minnesota where she held the Winton Chair. She has also been Vice-President of the International Economic Association, was elected the first Southern President of the International Association for Feminist Economics, served on the Board of the Global Development Network from its inception till 2006, and is a founder member of the Indian Society for Ecological Economics. Currently she serves on the UN Committee for Development Policy and the Prime Minister’s National Council for Land Reforms. She is also a member of the editorial boards of several international academic journals.

An economist with a keen interest in interdisciplinary and intercountry explorations, Bina Agarwal’s publications include eight books and numerous professional papers on a range of subjects: land, livelihoods and property rights; environment and development; the political economy of gender; poverty and inequality; law; and agriculture and technological change. Her book: A Field of One's Own: Gender and Land Rights in South Asia (Cambridge University Press, 1994) was awarded the A.K. Coomaraswamy Book Prize 1996; the Edgar Graham Book Prize 1996; and the K. H. Batheja Award 1995-96. She was the first Asian to win the first two awards. In 2002 she also received the Malcolm Adhiseshiah award for distinguished contributions to Development Studies, and in 2005 was the first recipient of the Ramesh Chandra award for “outstanding contributions to agricultural economics”. She holds an honorary doctorate from the Institute of Social Studies, The Hague, and was conferred the Padma Shri in 2008.

Bina Agarwal’s research is both theoretical and empirical in scope. Much of it focuses on the lives of the most disadvantaged. Her writings, especially on women’s land rights, have been used extensively in framing policy by governments, NGOs and international agencies. Recently she catalyzed a successful campaign for gender equality in Hindu inheritance law in India. She has been consultant to the Indian Planning Commission and has participated in the formulation of several of India’s Five Year Plans. She is now completing a book on environmental governance and gender.