Maja Daruwala

Some Lesser Known Facts About Maja Daruwala

• Maja Daruwala is an Indian advocate and human rights activist. She is known for being the younger daughter of the late Indian Field Marshal ‘Sam Manekshaw.’

• After completing her formal dedication, worked as a stewardess with the then “British Overseas Airways Corporation” (BOAC) now called British Airways.

• She was a trustee at Oxfama, a charitable organization in Great Britain. from 2009 to 2014. Since September 1996, she has been working as an Executive Director at the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI).

  

• Daruwala actively participates in various charitable boards globally such as NAMATI, International Record Management Trust, Chair in Multiple Action Research Group (MARG) New Delhi, and Public Affairs Centre (PAC) Bangalore.

  

• She was once recognized among the 200 World’s Most Dynamic Women by Zerbanoo Gifford.

• Maja Daruwala has lived and worked in England, Singapore, and Sri Lanka. After a brief practice in the Supreme Court of India, she devoted herself to the Ford Foundation as a program officer for South Asia and focussed on systemic reforms.

  

• Maja holds an important position in many other charitable boards such as the Open Society Justice Initiative and the International Women’s Health Coalition, both based in New York.

• As a barrister, Maja Daruwala mainly focuses on the key issues of civil liberties, gender equality, systems reform, the rule of law, and promoting access to information and justice. As a Senior Advisor to Tata Trusts, India’s largest philanthropy, she played a key role.

• She has served as Convenor and Chief Editor of the India Justice Reports in 2019 and 2020. She is also a Board Member of organizations like the Population Foundation of India, the Media Foundation, and the Centre for Social Justice, focusing on women’s health, reproductive rights, media, and civil liberties.

  

• Maja Daruwala has chaired the Minority Rights Group in London and also served on the board of the Justice Initiative at Open Society Justice Institute in New York and contributed to rights-based law reform globally. She has also served as an External Advisor for the World Bank Group’s Governance and Anticorruption Strategy.