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Rais Akhtar is Professor, Deptt. of Geography and regional development, University of Kashmir, Srinagar, J&K. he was a Full Member of the International Geographical Union Commission on Health, Environment and Development (1988-2000), and Chair of the National Association of Geographers, India, Commission on Medical Geography (1992-96). He has been awarded a number of international fellowships, including Leverhulme, Henry Chapman, Commonwealth Secretariat, Belgium and French government fellowships and Visiting Fellowship, IDS, Brighton. He visited University of Paris-10, France, and the University of Akron, USA as visiting Professor. He has delivered lectures in a number of universities both in geography departments and medicinal institutes in Hong Kong, Japan, USA, U.K, France, Belgium and Italy. He has to his credit a number of research papers published in national and international journals. He is the author/editor of ten books – two of them were published in London and New York. During 1988-90, he was a Member of the Working Group on Health and Family Welfare of the Planning Commission, New Delhi. He was also nominated as Lead Author on the UN Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (1999-2001). Prof. Akhtar was on the board of Advisory Editors of the international journal Social Science & Medicine during 1996-2002. He has recently been awarded a fellowship under Indo-French Social Scientist Exchange Programme-2004 for a research visit to universities in Paris.

Nilofar Izhar obtained her post graduation and Ph.D. from the prestigious Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh. Thereafter she was awarded several fellowships including CSIR Pool Scientist (under Indian Scinentists Abroad category), UGC Research Associateship and ICSSR Senior Fellowship. She has contributed more than 30 research papers in national and international journals. She is also the founder of Region, Health and Health Care, the first journal in the field of medical geography in India, and the Academy for the Study of Environment and Social Wellbeing, Aligarh. She has written several monographs on Geography of Traditional Medial Systems, as well as on Women’s Health. Currently she is working on gender issues with focus on women’s health. She has been nominated as Member on the Editorial Board for the Indian Journal of Preventive and Social Medicine.