Rita Banerji Biography 
Rita Banerji is an Indian photographer, writer, social activist and feminist. She is known for her fights for gender equality. As a writer Rita is best known for her non-fiction book Sex and Power: Defining History, Shaping Societies, published in 2008. She is the founder of the 50 Million Missing online campaign which fights against female genocide and creates awareness among people. She also had a career as a biologist and environmentalist, for which she has received many honours while at US.
Rita Banerji’s childhood and younger days were spent in different parts of the country. She grew up in 17 towns around the country. For higher studies she moved to US at the age of 18, and studied at Massachusetts and Washington D. C. After that she started her career as an environmentalist specializing in Conservation Biology. She returned to India at the age of 30, after which she began her career as a non-fictional writer. She started writing on issues of gender equality and women's rights in India.
While at US she completed her PhD on the effects of acid rain on maize, for which she received the Amy Lutz award in Plant Biology from the Association for Women in Science in 1995. As a biologist and environmentalist she has been a recipient of many other honours too. After returning to India, she started her writing career and published her first book Sex and Power:Defining History, Shaping Societies in 2008. It took 5 years of exclusive study on the subjects of sex and sexuality in India for the author to complete this book. The book was long-listed for the 2008 Vodafone Crossword Non-Fiction Book Award.
Published: November 23, 2018
Updated: November 23, 2018
