English: Honorary Graduate Vrinda Grover | SOAS Graduation 2018 | SOAS University of London

Vrinda Grover became a Honorary Graduate at the 2018 SOAS Graduation, the citation was given by Dr Navtej Purewal.

Vrinda Grover is a lawyer, researcher and human rights activist based in New Delhi, India. She obtained her law degree from Delhi University and her Masters in Law from New York University. She is active in the women's rights and human rights movements in India.

As a lawyer she has appeared in landmark cases representing victims and survivors of sexual assault and sexual harassment, communal conflict, extra judicial executions, enforced disappearances, custodial torture, and targeted human rights defenders.

Vrinda Grover’s research and writing probes the impunity of the state for human rights violations. Targeted violence against religious minorities has been a focus area of her research and advocacy and includes seminal research on examining the gaps in the law that contributed to the impunity for the 1984 anti-Sikh pogrom.

She has contributed to the drafting of laws to protect women and children from domestic violence and sexual violence. She has also advocated for a law prohibiting torture and legislation for protection from communal and targeted violence.

Vrinda Grover’s advocacy efforts span from the local to the global through engagement with UN human rights mechanisms including the Universal Periodic Review and UN Special Rapporteurs. She is a prominent commentator in the media on jurisprudential issues relating to accountability for violence against women and other vulnerable groups.

She is invited as a speaker at training institutions for the police, bureaucracy and judicial academies. In 2013, Time magazine listed her as one of the 100 most influential people in the world.