Ashok Pankaj | PROFESSOR

Ashok Pankaj, is a Professor at the Council for Social Development, New Delhi. His areas of interest and research are: law and political economy of development in India, with a focus on public policy, institutions of governance and development, and interface between democracy and development. He is a keen observer of rural society of India, and closely follows rural development and social welfare programmes, especially MGNREGA, NRLM, NSAP. He has conducted about two dozen sponsored field based studies on socio-economic developments, especially on employment, education and social sector development.   

He has published seven books; five in English and two in Hindi. In English: ‘Inclusive Development through Guaranteed Employment: India’s MGNREGA Experiences’ (Springer, 2023); (ed) ‘Right to Work and Rural India: Working of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS)’, (Sage, 2012); (ed) ‘Subalternity, Exclusion and Social Change in India’, (Cambridge University Press, 2014); (ed) ‘Dalits, Subalternity and Social Change in India’, (Routledge, 2018); and (ed) ‘Social Sector Development in North-east India’, (Sage, 2020). In Hindi: लोहिया के सपनों का भारत: भारतीय समाजवाद की रूपरेखा’ (Lohia Ke Sapno Ka Bharat: Bhartiya Samajwad Ki Ruprekha’), (Lokbharati Prakashan, 2024) and राममनोहर लोहिया: भारत की हिमालय नीति (‘Rammanohar Lohia: India’s Himalaya Policy’) (Lokbharati Prakashan, 2025).

Apart from serving on editorial boards of professional journals, he has regularly contributed research articles and book review to professional journals that include Contributions to Indian Sociology, Sociological Bulletin, South Asia Research, Journal of Asian and African Studies, Economic and Political Weekly, International Studies, Journal of Commonwealth and Comparative Politics, Social Scientist, Contemporary South Asia, Poverty in Focus, Social Change, among others.

Ashok Pankaj’s CV

ashokkpankaj@gmail.com