Professor MN Panini teaches at the School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University

He has an M. A. in Economics, M. Litt and Ph. D. in Sociology from the University of Delhi

He is the DFG Mercator Guest Professor at the Institute for Sociology, Albert Ludwigs University, Freiburg, Germany from February 1, 2002 to July 31, 2002.

He has been the editor of the Sociological Bulletin, journal of the Indian Sociological Society as Managing Editor during the years 1989-98.

His research projects includes

• Project on Basic Needs in India: A View From Above and From Below of the OECD Development Centre, Paris during 1978-79 with M. N. Srinivas and T. Scarlett Epstein.
• Project on Corporate Culture in India for Professor Peter Berger of the Institute for the Study of Economic Culture, Boston University, Boston Massachusetts, and USA during 1989-90.
• Project on the Promotion of Social and Economic Democracy through Employment Intensive Policies in Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal for the International Labour Organisation, New Delhi during 1995-96 with Professor T. K. Oommen.

• Treasurer of the Indian Sociological Society (1987-89).
• Member of the Managing Committee of the Society (1987-92).
• Chairperson of the Centre for the Study of Social Systems, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi during1991-93 and 1998-2000.
• Co-ordinator, Department of Special Assistance, Centre for the Study of Social Systems, Jawaharlal Nehru University 2002-06.

• Basic Needs in India: A View from Above and from Below of Karnataka (with Professors M. N. Srinivas and T. S. Epstein), OECD Development Centre, Paris 1983.
• Women Workers in the Unorganised Sector in Indiafor the National Commission on Self-Employed Women, Government of India 1988.
• Promotion of Social and Economic Democracy through Employment Intensive Policies (with T. K. Oommen), International Labour Organisation, Geneva 1996.