Anand Kumar, convener from South Asia, is Professor of Sociology and Coordinator of the Global Studies Programme at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in New Delhi. He holds an MA from Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, an MPhil from JNU, and a PhD from the University of Chicago. Past positions include National Secretary of the Indian Sociological Society (2005-7), Chair of the Centre for the Study of Social Systems, JNU (2003-5), and President of the Federation of Central Universities Teachers Associations of India (2001-3). He has also held visiting positions at Albert Ludwig University, Freiburg (Germany), Johannes Keppler University, Linz (Austria), and MSH, Paris (France). His areas of special interests include political sociology, lobalisation and postcolonial India, and poverty and society. His current research engagements address the political sociology of poverty, the limits of representative democracy, and globalisation of the Gandhian way. His books include State and Society in India: Making of the State's Agenda (1989), Parivartan Ki Rajniti Aur Rajniti Ka Parivartan (1996), and Political Sociology of Poverty (2005). He has also edited Nation-Building in India (1996), Tibet Sourcebook (2004), Global Quest for Participatory Democracy (2008), and Satyagraha : Globalisation of the Gandhian Way (forthcoming).