Meera Khanna is an award-winning author, poet, and nationally recognised grassroots social activist with over 26 years of sustained leadership in women’s empowerment, widows’ rights, and gender justice — working across India and on the international stage, including within the United Nations system.
She serves as Trustee and President of Guild of Service, one of India’s most respected NGOs with over 54 years of service to marginalised women, Director of the Secretariat of the Regional Alliance South Asian Network for Widows Empowered in Development, and as Director of the Global Alliance Last Woman First. As an Everywoman Cofounder, she served on the Expert Committee on Life Stages and as a Founding Steering Committee Member. She currently chairs the South Asian Coalition and leads high-level diplomatic engagements across the region.
A foremost voice on widows’ rights in India and globally, Meera has served on two Expert Committees for the Supreme Court of India and the National Commission for Women that made formal recommendations to the Supreme Court of India on the status of widows. She was a consultant to the High Level Committee on the Status of Women constituted by the Government of India. She drafted the landmark resolution on widows for UN action, which garnered support from over 104 organisations worldwide. She has presented before the CEDAW committee in Geneva on widows’ issues.
Meera has conducted multiple national surveys and a five-state survey on the status of widows in partnership with the National Human Rights Commission of India, as well as a survey with UN Women, bringing evidence and lived experience into policy. She has worked extensively with conflict-affected women and children in Kashmir, conceptualising and running a shelter in these areas with an unwavering focus on widows, single women, and the most underprivileged.
A prolific and celebrated author, her books include “If There Be a Paradise,” “In a State of Violent Peace,” and “Breaking Paths.” She is the co-editor of Mantras of Positive Ageing and Status of Widows in South Asia. Her writing on women’s rights appears widely in newspapers, journals, and anthologies, and she has presented papers at numerous national and international forums, including within the UN system.
Meera Khanna embodies the rare combination of scholar, storyteller, and changemaker — a woman who does not merely write about justice, but fights for it.