Harsh Mander

Harsh Mander
Harsh Mander talking at The Energy and Resources Institute Bangalore on the subject "Unequal India", program hosted by Azim Premji University
Born	1955 (age 61–62)
Occupation	Writer, Activist

Harsh Mander is an activist, who works with survivors of mass violence and hunger, as well as homeless persons and street children (citation needed). He has been a former member of Sonia Gandhi led National Advisory Council and closely associated with the Congress party,. He is the Director of the Centre for Equity Studies and a Special Commissioner to the Supreme Court of India in the Right to Food case.

He is associated with various social causes and movements, and writes and speaks regularly on issues of communal harmony, tribal, dalit and disabled persons' rights, the right to information, custodial justice, homelessness and bonded labour.

Harsh Mander formerly worked in the Indian Administrative Service, serving in the predominantly tribal states of Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh for almost two decades.

He is a founding member of the National Campaign for the People’s Right to Information. He was a Member of the Core Groups on Bonded Labour and Mental Hospitals of the statutory National Human Rights Commission; and also on various national official National Committees such as those for Social Protection and BPL. From October, 1999 to March 2004, he worked as Country Director, ActionAid India, a development support organization. He is Founder-Chairperson of the State Health Resource Centre, Chhattisgarh, which established the Mitanin Community Health Programme, the fore-runner of the Asha Programme, and the Chairperson of INCENSE (The Inclusion and Empowerment of People with Severe Mental Disorders). He is also a member of the Working Group of the Project on Armed Conflict Resolution & People's Rights, University of California, Berkeley.

He was appointed a Member of India’s National Advisory Council by the council President Sonia Gandhi in June 2010. He convened the working groups on the Food Security Bill, Land Acquisition and Rehabilitation Bill, Child Labour Abolition, Urban Poverty and Homelessness, Disability Rights, Bonded Labour, Street Vendors and Urban Slums, and co-convened the groups on the Communal and Targeted Violence Bill, Dalits and Minorities and Tribal Rights, among others. His tenure was not renewed in 2012.

He is currently the Director of the Centre for Equity Studies, an autonomous institution engaged in research and advocacy on issues of social and economic justice and equity. He is also the founder of the campaigns 'Aman Biradari', for secularism, peace and justice; 'Nyayagrah', for legal justice and reconciliation for the survivors of communal violence; 'Dil Se', for street children; and 'Hausla' for urban homeless people. He has also been appointed the Special Commissioner to the Supreme Court of India for the purpose of monitoring the implementation of all orders relating to the right to food (PUCL vs Union of India and others, Writ Petition 196 of 2001).