.jpg)
The Centre for Women’s Rights (‘Centre’) consists of a dynamic team of JGLS faculty who are committed to conducting meaningful research on various aspects of women’s rights, grounded firmly in the disciplines of law, social sciences and humanities and their intersections. The Centre commenced its work in February 2022.
Our Vision & Mission
The Centre envisions an inclusive and equitable society, where every woman identifying person will be able to live her/their life to the fullest potential, with freedom from want and freedom from fear, particularly of violence. Towards this, the Centre has initiated pioneering research on contemporary issues pertaining to women’s rights.
Areas of Focus
Centre Director: Dr. Pallavi Gupta
Dr. Pallavi Gupta is Associate Professor of Law at JGLS, Director, Centre for Women’s Rights and Co-Director, PhD Program at JGLS. She is a feminist interdisciplinary socio-legal scholar with a Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina, an LLB from Indian Law Society's Law College, and a Master's in Social Work from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences.
Dr Gupta brings two decades of experience as a feminist practitioner, socio-legal researcher and CEDAW trainer, as well as industry experience as a trainer on POSH, gender and law, and monitoring and evaluation, alongside academic and administrative experience, with university teaching in India and the United States, and professional experience in the development sector. She has published in the Annals of the American Association of Geographers, Political Geography, and Review of Gender Studies in the Economic and Political Weekly, to name a few. You can read more about her work see here
-thumb.jpg)
Fellow – Dr. Aditi Krishna
Dr. Aditi Krishna, Assistant Professor, JGLS and Assistant Director, CfWR, is a Social Anthropologist with key research interests in the areas of Cultural Anthropology, Ethnomusicology, Gender, folk and heritage studies, South Asian expressive arts, cultural regionalism, and identity. Her research and academic interests reflect an interdisciplinary approach, which is also demonstrated in various papers she has presented at national and internal conferences over time. For more details see here
Fellow – Prof. (Dr.) Niharika Banerjea.
Niharika Banerjea, Professor and Senior Fellow is uniquely situated as a transdisciplinary queer, gender and sexuality studies scholar, with critical, empirical and collaborative work that crosses academic/activist borders and global north/global south divides. Her transnational collaborative work has been generously supported by competitive awards and grants, including an Economic and Social Research Council Grant in the United Kingdom and awards from the Leicester Institute of Advanced Studies in the United Kingdom. She has more than twenty years of d undergraduate, graduate, and PhD teaching, supervision, and mentorship experience across the United States and India. For more details see here
Fellow – Prof. (Dr.) Poushali Basak
Poushali Basak (they/she), Assistant Professor and Fellow at CFWR, Jindal Global Law School (JGLS) is a feminist, queer scholar-activist specialising in the historiography of feminist and queer collectives and movements. Her academic interests have been in the areas of the political and the urban; right to the city; gender and citizenship; queer lives, politics, and live-abilities; gender and education. She is an interdisciplinary scholar being trained in the disciplines of Women’s Studies, Urban Studies and English Literature. Associated with feminist, queer and democratic rights movement spaces, they try to locate and build research and pedagogy located in the struggles of marginalised communities and inspired by local movements and collective processes. For more details, see here
Fellow – Prof. (Dr.) Manika Bora
Manika Bora is an Assistant Professor, JGLS and Fellow, CFWR. Trained as a development economist, she did her doctoral research on empirical study of intergenerational mobility in education and intergroup inequality in Bihar. Her current teaching and research interests include gender and education, feminist political economy, agrarian change and critical pedagogy. Her current research projects are largely at the intersections of these interests - a study of educational mobility in an evicted community in Delhi metropolitan fringe, a project about the discourse on caste in mental health curriculum and a project on higher education outreach in rural communities in India. For more details refer to see here
Fellow – Shama B.H. Abbasi
Prof. Abbasi is an Assistant Professor and Assistant Director, at Mahatma Gandhi Centre for Peace Studies, JGU at the O.P. Jindal Global University. She works with the Mahatma Gandhi Centre for Peace Studies. Her research focuses on Islamic Feminism and the interface between State Power and Human Rights. For more details, see here
Fellow – Prof. Sonam Narayan
Sonam Narayan is an Assistant Professor at Jindal Global Law School (JGLS), O.P. Jindal Global University. She currently serves as the Assistant Director of the K.K. Luthra & Nirmal Luthra Centre for Comparative Criminal Law and Criminal Justice Studies, a role in which she spearheads initiatives that foster a deeper understanding of criminal jurisprudence across diverse legal systems. Her expertise in comparative criminal law is instrumental in shaping the Centre's research agenda and its engagement with global legal challenges. see here
Fellow – Prof. Upasana Khattri
Upasana Khattri is an Assistant Professor and Senior Research Associate at Jindal Global Law School. She is a legal scholar whose research interests lie at the intersection of labour law, constitutional law, human rights, and equality law.
She holds an LL.M. in Constitutional and Human Rights Law from National Law University, Delhi, and a B.B.A. LL.B. from Banasthali University, Rajasthan. Her academic interests focus on questions of labour rights, substantive equality, and the legal protection of human rights, with particular attention to the relationship between law, social justice, and institutional frameworks.
For more details: see here
Senior Research Assistant – Akshata Ahire
Akshata Ahire’s professional journey began with extensive experience in litigation, particularly in handling pro-bono cases, which reinforced her commitment to advocating for the rights of marginalised communities, especially women. Her teaching and research focus on the intersection of gender, caste, and law. Currently, she is pursuing a Master’s in Gender and Development Studies from IGNOU, further deepening her expertise in these critical areas.
Fellow – Prof. Seerat Gill
Seerat Gill, Lecturer and Senior Research Assistant, is a legal scholar whose research interests lie at the intersection of women and law, constitutional law, human rights, and equality law. Her research adopts a critical engagement with legal frameworks to examine the relationship between law and gender, the constitutional dimensions of women’s rights in India and a recent focus on menstrual rights. She holds a Bachelor of Civil Law (BCL) from the University of Oxford and a B.A. LL.B. (Hons.) from Rajiv Gandhi National University of Law, Punjab. For more details see here
Fellow – Prof. (Dr.) Prerna Subramanian
Prerna Subramania (they/she) is an Assistant Professor at Jindal Global Law School, NCR. They hold a Ph.D. in Cultural Studies from Queen’s University, Kingston, Canada and their work on transgender mobility and middle class in India was supported by the OCUFA Henry Mandelbaum fellowship. Her research focuses on mobility, affective, and gender justice in pop culture. Notable publications include works in Agenda (2018), Society and Culture in South Asia (2022), Journal of Asia-Pacific Pop Culture (2023), Media Asia (2023), Feminist Media Histories (2024) and South Asia Review (2024). For more details, see here
Senior Research Associate – Sanya Kishwar.
Sanya Darakhshan Kishwar researches in the area of human rights, gender studies and feminist theories. Her ongoing doctoral project at NLU, Delhi focuses on the rise of digital antifeminism in the Global South. She was the recipient of the Best Law Student of India Award, 2018 and SILF-MILAT full tuition scholarship for LLM at Pennsylvania State University. She received Liberty Scholarship for LLM, with specialisation in International Human Rights Law at the University of Leeds. Sanya has been the President of Indian Lawyers Association, Sonipat Chapter and a Council member of WICCI (Women’s Indian Chamber of Commerce & Industry). She is also mentoring a student-led initiative called P’Voice which aims at simplifying laws for the awareness and understanding of common people. For more details, see here
Senior Fellow – Prof. (Dr.) Preethi Krishnan
Preethi Krishnan’s research explores the broad question of how state-society dynamics influence social change. She addresses this question through two thematic projects. Her project on Integrated Child Development Services (Anganwadi) examines how structures of gender, caste, and class influence how women claim entitlements for care and food. The second thematic project examines how the supreme court interprets domestic violence laws and impacts gender justice while adjudicating cases. In another collaborative project, her research explores how women navigated violence during the Covid-19 pandemic. For more details, see here
Research Assistant – Pauline Forje
Pauline Forje’s interest and research are deeply influenced by her international background and education, spanning Europe and Africa. Her work focuses on the intersection of human rights and public policy in developing countries, emphasising the importance of South-South cooperation. For more details, see here
Krishna, Aditi. 2026. “Cross-cultural interactions of different eras: Fieldwork and music education spaces in contemporary India.” In Cross-Cultural Musicology from Asia-Pacific Perspectives: Entangled Histories, edited by Nancy November. Routledge.
Dua, Kashish, Sara Shroff, Niharika Banerjea, Shermal Wijewardene, and Adnan Hossain. 2026. “Lesbian in/from South Asia: erotic and political geographies.” Journal of Lesbian Studies, 10.1080/10894160.2026.2714665
Banerjea, Niharika, Poushali Basak, Sutanuka Bhattacharya, and Kolika Mitra. "A collaborative dialogue about nurturing with/in queerness." (2026) Feminist Review, 01417789261442007.
Biswas, Ranjita, Srabasti Majumdar, and Niharika Banerjea (2026). “Companionship, kinship and continuum: Reflections with lesbian identifying older persons in Mumbai and Kolkata.” Journal of Lesbian Studies, 1-20. doi: 10.1080/10894160.2026.2620925.
Bora, Manika and Mitra, Shabana (2026), A Suitable Groom: The Effect of Girl's Education on Dowry Payments. Population and Development Review. Wiley Online on behalf of Population Council. https://doi.org/10.1111/padr.70090
Banerjea, Niharika, Poushali Basak, Sutanuka Bhattacharya, and Kolika Mitra. "A collaborative dialogue about nurturing with/in queerness." (2026) Feminist Review, 01417789261442007.
The CFWR Research Colloquium will be held on 14 November 2026, bringing together members to present and discuss their work in progress, with the aim of developing it towards publication. Spanning themes across law and the social sciences, the colloquium will provide a collaborative forum for critical engagement and constructive feedback to strengthen ongoing research and facilitate its development into publishable work.
1st Annual Interdisciplinary Conference on Gender Violence, Access to Justice, and the Law in India
The Centre for Women’s Rights (CFWR), in collaboration with The Prajnya Trust, is proud to host its 1st Annual Interdisciplinary Conference on Gender Violence, Access to Justice, and the Law in India, 2024, on 7th December 2024.
We are honoured to welcome Professor (Dr.) Albeena Shakil, esteemed faculty member at Jindal Global Law School, as our keynote speaker for this event.
This conference aims to foster critical discussions on the intersection of gender violence, access to justice, and legal frameworks in India. Through keynote addresses, panel discussions, and scholarly presentations, the event seeks to (re)imagine the law as a tool for advancing gender justice. Bringing together academics, practitioners, policymakers, and advocates, the conference promises a vibrant platform for exchange and action-oriented dialogue.
Poetry, Prose, or Painting Competition
To commemorate International Women's Day on 08th March 2024, the Centre partnered with GirlUp JGU, a student-run society linked to the United Nations Foundation's Girl Up Campaign and Girl Up India, to promote gender equality. This year's theme, "Inspire Inclusion," encouraged students from all schools and departments at JGU to express themselves through poetry, prose, or painting. These contributions will soon be featured on social media for greater visibility, using a specific hashtag. We received several entries, which are scheduled to be shared soon.
Online Virtual Summit on Gender, Data and Technology
The Virtual Summit on Gender, Data, and Technology, held on February 16-17, 2024, brought together speakers and participants to discuss the intersection of gender, data, and technology. Organised by Maharashtra National Law University - Mumbai, in collaboration with Amity University - Dubai and CFWR - JGLS, JGU, the event aimed to foster inclusivity and promote equality through diverse gender identities. The CFWR provided content support and publicised the Summit. Prof. (Dr.) Saumya Uma participated as a panelist in the session 'Gender Sensitivity and Gender Neutrality in the Digital Age,' where she discussed sexual and gender-based cyber violence, arguing against gender neutrality.
World Indigenous Rights Day 2023
Webinars
Film Screening
The film,Holy Rightsby Farha Khatun was screened on the 15thMarch 2023 on the University premises.
The film depicts a female character who enrolls in a training program to train other women to become Oazis (Muslim clerics who interpret and administer personal law) which is traditionally male dominated. The film portrays the challenges faced by Muslim women in their fight against the practice of tiple talaq, the condescending attitudes of their community as well as resist external forces from exploiting their movement for their own political gain.
Photography Competition
I Am WOMAN' photography contestto commemorate International Women's Day (08thMarch 2023).
The Centre organised the 'I Am WOMAN' photography contest to commemorate International Women's Day (08thMarch 2023). Students were asked to send in pictures to highlight the meaning of being a woman. From women's struggles, unionising, women at work, women at leisure, women dancing, laughing and so on. 19 students participated across different schools and departments. Three winners were unanimously chosen and announced during the film screening of Holy Rights by Farha Khatun. Their pictures are to be displayed around the University grounds very soon.
Winners of the 'I Am WOMAN' photography contest
Muslim women, dressed in black chador, engrossed in a conversation at Marine Drive while they bathein the warm afternoon light of a Sunday sunset.
Having struggled with body image issues for as long as I can remember, one day, I decided to own my flaws and conducted a photo shoot for myself since photography is what I like to use to express my creativity and emotions. This image is one of the best results of that shoot. I have always considered my eyes the most beautiful feature I have, so I tried to photograph them as best I could with a timer and a tripod. The song "I am Woman" by Emmy Emmy Meli has always been a source of strength for me. So, for International Women's Day 2023, I wanted to pay homage to myself and the beauty I bring by submitting this photograph of myself.
On my way to YB, I spotted these women sitting at the divider. They were having a very intense conversation, and on this divider they made themselves very comfortable. I won't ever know what they were talking. But, i can imagine it. Can you? Your imagination will determine the life of these women now.
Webinars:Ear to the Ground
Book Discussion
International Women's Day, 9th March 2022
The Centre held avirtual screening sessionand discussion of JUICE; AHALYA & PLEASE MIND THE GAP
Online Conference on Gender Violence, Access to Justice and the Law in India, 7th – 8th December 2024. Theme of Conference: Judgement analysis and Judicial Trends. For more details, see here.
Film Exhibition – Coming soon in September 2024. Stay tuned.
Online Internatonal Conference on Family Laws in South Asia: Examining Strategies For Gender-Just Reforms and Exploring The Potential For Transnatonal Feminist Learnings, 30th to 31st August 2024, For more details, see here.
