India, Nepal and Sri Lanka

Shruti Pandey

Program Officer New Delhi

Shruti Pandey works on human rights issues in the foundation's New Delhi office. Her grant making supports the creation of effective institutions and mechanisms for people to demand and access their economic and social rights, including housing, education, health, land, food and employment, and to have remedies available to challenge their violations. Her work focuses mainly on India, but also supports human rights advocates in Nepal and Sri Lanka.

Prior to joining the Ford Foundation in 2010, Shruti worked as human rights lawyer for more than 15 years, focusing on the rights of women, persons with disabilities, trafficked persons and health rights in India. She was associated with several landmark cases of public interest litigation in the Supreme Court of India on issues such as: child marriages; workplace sexual harassment; human trafficking; unsafe/coercive sterilization of women; access to antiretroviral drugs; and uniform civil law for adoption of children in India. She also led the drafting of a national health bill for the government of India and has been part of Indian law and policy reform on several other human rights issues.

Shruti has worked with the Lawyers Collective, the Human Rights Law Network and the National Health Systems Resource Centre at New Delhi, and she was briefly a visiting lawyer on equality with INTERIGHTS in the United Kingdom. She has published books and papers related to her field, and has also worked to increase the resources available to lawyers, judges and activists who focus on human rights issues.

Shruti studied history in Lady Shri Ram College of Delhi University before earning her Bachelor's in Law (LL.B.) degree from Delhi University's Law Faculty in 1993.