About
Rita Banerji is an author, photographer and a gender activist from India.
Her book Sex and Power: Defining History, Shaping Societies was released by Penguin Books in 2008 (Penguin Global, 2009). She is also the founder and chief administrator of The 50 Million Missing, an online, global campaign working to stop the ongoing female genocide in India.
Her works have been published in magazines and newspapers in the USA, U.K., India, Nepal, Hong Kong and Australia. The publications include The London Magazine, New Orleans Review, and India Today. She blogs at Rita’s Blog.
Rita was born and raised in India. At 18 she moved to the U.S.A. where she lived for 11 years. She attended Mount Holyoke College and George Washington University in the U.S. Her fields of study were Ecology, Conservation Biology, and Cultural Anthropology, and she worked largely in the environmental field. Many of her projects had a gender perspective. She has worked with the Chipko women’s movement in India (under the supervision of Dr. Vandana Shiva), and with the Institute for Policy Studies and The World Resources Institute in Washington D.C.
Her book Sex and Power, the culmination of a 5-year, in-depth, social and historical study of sex and sexuality in India, was long-listed for the Crossword-Vodaphone Non-fiction Award.
In 2009 the book reached the no.1 spot on Crossword’s best-sellers list in Kolkata.
Banerji received the Apex Award for Magazine and Journal Writing (U.S.A.) in 2009.
AWARDS AND HONORS:
Apex Award for Magazine and Journal Writing (U.S.A.)
Long-listed for the Vodaphone-Crossword Non-Fiction Book Award (India)
Morgan Adams Award in Biology for Ph.D. Research (U.S.A.)
Sigma Xi Scientific Research Society, Associate member
Botanical Society of America’s Young Botanist Recognition Award
Howard Hughes Grant for research in genetics
Who’s Who Among Students in American Colleges and Universities
Award for Student Leadership and Service, Mount Holyoke College
Charles A. Dana Fellowship for Research in Ecology
President’s Award for Commitment and Contribution to Campus Life, Mount Holyoke
