Kalpana Kannabiran is Professor and Director at the Council for Social Development, Hyderabad, India. Among her book publications are Tools of Justice: Non-Discrimination and the Indian Constitution (2012) and the edited volumes The Violence of Normal Times: Essays on Women's Lived Realities (2005), Women and Law: Critical Feminist Perspectives (2014) and Violence Studies (2016). She has taught at NALSAR University of Law and is co-founder of Asmita Resource Centre for Women. Kannabiran has written on gender, caste, tribe, violence, disability, law and free speech and is recipient of the VKRV Rao Prize for Social Science Research (2003) and the Amartya Sen Award for Distinguished Social Scientists (2012), both for her work in the field of law. She is on the editorial advisory committee of the Review of Women's Studies of Economic and Political Weekly.

Padmini Swaminathan is Professor and Chairperson of the School of Livelihoods and Development at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Hyderabad, India. A former Director at the Madras Institute of Development Studies, she also held the Reserve Bank of India Chair in Regional Studies at MIDS. Her research work covers industrial organization, labour, occupational health and skill development, all from a perspective of gender. Her recent publications include the edited volume Women and Work (2012). She currently serves on the editorial boards of several journals including Gender, Technology and Development, Indian Journal of Gender Studies, Journal of Entrepreneurship and the editorial advisory committee of the Review of Women's Studies of Economic and Political Weekly.