Karuna Nundy

Nundy grew up with a desire to serve her community and nation through her skills. Growing up, her parents also actively committed themselves to government and community service. Her father worked at Harvard Medical School, but left to work at AIIMS and work in a public hospital in India. Her mother, after learning that Nundy's cousin was born of cerebral palsy, started the Spastics Society of Northern India.[7]

She received a degree in Economics from St. Stephen's College, Delhi University.[8] After a short stint as a TV journalist[8][9] she studied law at Cambridge University,[9][8] and later pursued LL.M. from Columbia University, New York.[3]

Nundy worked as a lawyer in United Nations.[8] In 2016, she represented Jeeja Ghosh in case against SpiceJet Airlines. Ms. Ghosh had cerebral palsy and had boarded a flight from Kolkata to Goa. She was asked by airline staff to disembark the flight claiming she didn't look well and they didn't want her condition to deteriorate. She was humiliated. She pursued a case against the airline and the Supreme Court and urged airlines to treat differently abled travelers. The Supreme Court ruled in her favor and ordered airline to pay Rs 10 lakh to her and for all air carriers to train their staff on needs and treatment of such passengers.[10]

Nundy has also played a significant role in drafting the anti-rape bill after the 2012 Delhi gang rape.[11] In 2019, the UK foreign office appointed the lawyer to a new panel of experts to develop legal frameworks to protect freedom of the media across the globe.[12] She has also advised and worked on policy issues for the Nepal Interim Constitution, a workshop with the Senate of Pakistan, the Government of Bhutan, and legal reform in the Maldives with the Attorney General's Office and Chief Justice of the Maldives Supreme Court.[13] Nundy also participates in a UK panel to support media freedom led by Lord David Neurberger and Amal Clooney.[14]

In November 2019, she also met German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, during her 2-day visit to India.[15] Nundy was included by an Economic Times jury in a list of 'Corporate India's Fastest Rising Women Leaders' which cited her as being 'famous in the corporate world for her expertise in commercial law'.[16][17] In 2020, Forbes Magazine named her on the their list of "Self Made Women 2020."[18]

On fighting for civil rights, "I’m a great believer in deliberative democracy; where you speak, but you also listen. You come through the other side with differences intact, but you also come through together in important ways."[19]