Namita Waikar is the author of The Long March, a novel about the agrarian crisis in India that triggered a farmers' protest movement. Waikar studied biochemistry at the University of Mumbai and is a partner in a chemistry databases firm, a culmination of her work as a biochemist and a software project manager. She is co-founder and managing editor at the People's Archive of Rural India (PARI), where she also writes for and anchors the Grindmill Songs Project. She lives in Pune.