Professor Jagdish Lal Azad (b. 1920) retired as Chief of Education Division, Planning Commission, with which he was associated for more than two decades. Thereafter, he worked as (Visiting) Professor of Economics of Education at various universities. He was also Senior Fellow (ICSSR) at NIEPA, as also Honorary Director of Planning Commission sponsored Research Projects at the JNU, New Delhi. He was also a Fellow at the University of York (England).
Prof. Azad has been closely associated with the academic programmes of bodies like UGC, NIEPA, NCERT and NCTE. He was also Chairman/Member of a number of Committees/Study Groups. He has written extensively on problems of Indian Education. His published works include 15 research-based studies, a large number of articles and reports brought out by national and international Journals as also fellow academicians/ researchers in their publications.