OUR SPEAKERS

Sunita Narain
Director General at CSE and Editor of Down To Earth. Has co-authored influential publications on India’s environment, conducted in-depth research on governance and management of the country’s environment and directed campaigns on a number of environmental issues.

Chandra Bhushan
Deputy Director General at CSE, heading the Industry, Food Safety and Toxins, Energy, Climate Change, Waste Management and Environmental Governance teams.

Gita Kavarana
Director of the Anil Agarwal Environment Training Institute (AAETI).

Rajneesh Sareen
Programme Director of the Sustainable Buildings and Habitat Programme at CSE. He is an urban and environmental planner from the School of Planning and Architecture in New Delhi and an IEMA-certified advanced environmental systems auditor.

Avikal Somvanshi
Architect and urbanologist, is a Programme Manager with the Sustainable Buildings and Habitat Programme at CSE. A Fulbright-Nehru scholar, he is serving as a Juror for the international Berkeley Undergraduate Prize for Architectural Design Excellence 2019.

Souparno Banerjee
Senior Director-Outreach & Publications, at CSE. Holds over 20 years of experience in communications, media management and publishing (editorial).

Madan Bhimrao Lokur
Eminent jurist and a former judge of the Supreme Court of India. A champion of environmental causes, with notable judgements and orders on illegal mining and air pollution.

K J Ramesh
Director General, Indian Meteorology Department, Ministry of Earth Sciences of the Government of India. Holds a doctorate in monsoon dynamics from IIT, and has been an advisor to the Ministry of Earth Sciences on atmospheric sciences and climate since 2007.

Amit Baruah
Resident Editor of The Hindu in New Delhi. Award-winning journalist with over 33 years of experience. Has reported for The Hindu from India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and South-East Asia. Has also served as the South Asia Editor of BBC World Service, Head of its Hindi Service, and Foreign Affairs Editor of The Hindustan Times.

Richard Mahapatra
Managing Editor, Down To Earth. Has written extensively on development matters and the linkages between environment and poverty.

Ajay Vir Jakhar
Chairperson, Bharat Krishak Samaj and a citrus farmer based in village Maujgarh in Fazilka, Punjab. Also the editor of agriculture magazines Farmers’ Forum and Krishak Samachar, and a passionate advocate of policies for farmer prosperity, self-sustainability and equal opportunities.

Vijay Jawandhia
A founder member of Shetkari Sanghathana, the Maharashtra-based farmers’ union. One of the key voices talking about farmers’ rights and their problems.

Sanjay Singh
CEO of Parmarth Samaj Sevi Sansthan, an NGO working in Bundelkhand, one of the most severely drought-afflicted regions of India. Works towards bringing qualitative improvement in the lives of weaker and deprived sections of the society. Has launched a water conservation campaign led by women.

Ashok Pankaj
Director of the New Delhi-based Council for Social Development, he specialises on law and political economy with a focus on public policies, institutions of governance and development, and the interface between development and democracy and society and polity.

Bhure Lal
Chairperson, Environment Pollution (Prevention & Control) Authority (EPCA). An administrator with almost five decades of experience. Has been leading the fight against pollution in Delhi-NCR.

Anumita Roychowdhury
CSE’s Executive Director in charge of research and advocacy, and head of the Centre’s programmes on air pollution, mobility and sustainable urbanisation and habitat. Has been at the forefront of the Centre’s public campaign on the right to clean air, and has served on national and international committees on air pollution and transportation.

Gufran Baig
Director of the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology in Pune. Formerly, the programme director of System of Air Quality Forecasting and Research (SAFAR), a network of air quality and weather monitoring stations that assists in the forecast of air quality and in maintaining an emission inventory. An elected Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences, he was the first Indian to receive the Norbert Gerbier-Mumm International Award of the World Meteorological Organization in 2005

Prashant Gargava
Member Secretary of the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB). Holds a doctorate in environmental engineering with more than 25 years of progressive and varied experience in the field of environmental management

Gaurav Dubey,
Programme Manager of the Sustainable Mobility Programme in CSE. An urban and transport planner.

Jasmine Shah
Vice Chairperson of the Delhi Dialogue and Development Commission. Is a Nehru-Fulbright scholar with over a decade of experience. Advises the Government of Delhi on budgetary and transport policy reforms.

Manu Sharma
Director-Corporate Affairs, Society of Manufacturers of Electric Vehicles (SMEV). Has been working closely with various government departments for creating a favourable ecosystem for the electric vehicle industry in India.

Sanjay Krishnan
Co-founder and CEO of the Bengaluru-based Lithium Urban Technologies. Has over two decades of global experience. Was instrumental in establishing India’s first organized kerb-side taxi service.

Sudhir Misra
Resident Editor of Nav Bharat Times, the Hindi daily, in Lucknow. In his 21 years in journalism, has worked with leading dailies such as Dainik Bhaskar, Hindustan and Dainik Jagran.

Raju Nayak
Editor of Lokmat, the Marathi daily, in Goa. Has over 30 years of experience in journalism, and three books – on the impact of mining in Goa – to his credit.

Suresh Rohilla
A water sustainability, urban environment management and planning expert serving as Senior Director, Water Programme, CSE and Academic Director at the School of Water and Waste in AAETI

Sushmita Sengupta
A post-graduate in geology, she manages the Rural Water-Waste and Sanitation programme of CSE

Nazar Khalid
Research Fellow at the Research Institute for Compassionate Economics (RICE) in Gurugram, Haryana. An MPhil in economics from Jawaharlal Nehru University, his research interests include social networks, discrimination and social attitudes, education and food security.

Avani Kapur
Director of Accountability Initiative at the Centre for Policy Research (CPR), New Delhi. Works on building evidence for policy advocacy to strengthen transparency and accountability in public financial management for service delivery. Is leading research studies on health, sanitation, nutrition and education financing.

Megha Sen
Programme Officer with the CLTS Foundation in Kolkata. Has worked in areas of strategic development, capacity building, knowledge generation and technical and process support for implementation.

Ajay Deshpande
Former expert member with the National Green Tribunal, Dr Deshpande’s expertise lies in environmental governance, environmental safeguards and industrial and urban environmental management.

Shilpa Chohan
An advocate at the Supreme Court of India and founding partner of Indian Environment Law Organization (IELO). Has been actively involved in some prominent public interest matters on mining, forests and land acquisition.

Swati Singh Sambyal
Manages the Solid Waste Management programme at CSE. Works in India and Africa and is part of various advisory boards on solid waste management

Bharati Chaturvedi
Founder and Director of Chintan Environmental Research and Action Group. A known voice in the areas of urban poverty, consumption, and sustainable livelihoods for those working in the informal sector.

Rajesh Gopal
Secretary General of the New Delhi-based Global Tiger Forum. As a member of the Indian Forest Service, was director of some of the most important national parks in the country. Headed Project Tiger.

Yadavendra V Jhala
Head of Animal Ecology and Conservation Biology Department at the Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun. An expert on Indian carnivores, he has taught courses in wildlife conservation and management for the Smithsonian Institution in China, Tanzania, Malaysia, India and the US.

Lalit Pande
Social worker and environmentalist and the founder of Uttarakhand Seva Nidhi Paryavaran Shiksha Sansthan, an NGO promoting environmental education in Uttarakhand. Has introduced community educational programmes focused on environment and development in the state.

Ravi Chellam
Wildlife biologist and conservation scientist. Has worked with the Wildlife Institute of India, the United Nations Development Programme, Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment, among others. Is currently serving as CEO of Metastring Foundation in Bengaluru.

Ishan Kukrety
Reporter with Down To Earth, specialising in forests and wildlife.