One For India - 2009 | AID India

  Saathis

AID recognizes certain outstanding social and environmental activists in India with "Saathi" awards. Since they are highly creative, committed and motivated individuals, we wish to support them in a manner that allows them freedom to operate without the constraints of a specific time-bound project.

The program creates a mutually enriching relationship between AID and the Saathi and entails not only support in the form of a stipend, but also non-monetary involvement and strategic support from AID volunteers. Saathis are a source of great inspiration to AID volunteers, and provide insight into development dynamics.

Saathis are referred to AID by our associates in India and volunteers across AID. In many cases, existing Saathis and Jeevansaathis recommend potential candidates to us. We stay in intimate touch with our Saathis and their work through personal visits, phone calls and correspondence. Click on links on the right to learn more about our Saathis.

 

Our People

Anand Mazgaonkar Peter Bakos
Arvind Kejriwal Parasanna Saligram
Bhargavi S. Rao Ravindra Sharma
Chandra Anil Revathi
C Srinivasan Richa Singh
Tara Ahluwalia Shibu Nair
Dhanada Mishra Smitha Kalyani
Kanchi Kohli Souparna Lahiri
Latha Anantha Swati Desai
Malika Virdi Sridhar R
Nammalvarji Swetha Narayan
Nityanand Jayaraman

Anand Mazgaonkar

AID started a new chapter in engaging with grassroots movements in Gujarat when we elected Anand Mazgaonkar as our Saathi. Anand is based in Rajpipla in Gujarat and is a senior activist with Paryavaran Suraksha Samiti (PSS) and National Alliance of Peoples' Movements (NAPM).

Anand was raised in Mumbai, completed his Bachelor of Commerce in Mumbai and post-graduate studies in Baroda. He was in his early teens when he became involved in activism during the emergency. In late 1970s, when emergency ended with the change in the government, he saw that people's problems did not get solved. He realized that one of the main causes of people's issues was unequal resource allocation, where a small percentage of urban population takes away most of the resources, depriving the rural poor of their basic needs. He also realized the need to be at the grassroots level to have a deeper understanding of people's problems.

He moved out of Mumbai and settled in a small village in the district of Bharuch in Gujarat. He worked there with a small non-governmental organization (NGO) called Sarvangeen Gram Vikas Mandal. During his work with the NGO, Anand realized that the "Project-Program-Target" model adapted by NGOs is detrimental to mobilizing people as both the NGO and the beneficiaries look only at the short-term success or gains of a project and not at the root of the problems. Hence he decided not to form an NGO of his own but instead to form a network of friends and work on issues at the grassroots level as well as those at the macro level. In 1991, he moved to Kantidra, a small tribal village, 65 km downstream from the Sardar Sarovar dam and stayed there until 1999. By this time, he had started taking on a larger role on issues such as tribal rights, economic policies and communal harmony. So he decided to move to Rajpipla from where travel and communication was easier.

Anand was introduced to AID when AID Jeevan Saathis, Ravi Kuchimanchi and Arvinda Pillamari, met him in Mumbai in 1998. Since then Anand has helped AID to get in touch with many grassroots organizations in Gujarat. A humble Gandhian, Anand earned his living by selling jaggery while focusing the bulk of his time in environmental struggle and people's issues. Highly recommended by senior AID volunteers, Ravi Kuchimanchi, Arvinda Pillamari, Gautam Desai and Dr.Mohan Bhagat, Anand became an AID Saathi in 2004.

His honesty, humility, commitment and intellectual abilities are beyond doubt. Anand's grassroots work along with his abilities to organize and the anti-communal stand that he has taken are critical to furthering AID's education in these various developmental issues. AID bay area chapter has been coordinating his saathiship and proudly stands by Anand and his work!

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Arvind Kejriwal

Arvind Kejriwal is an social activist and crusader for greater transparency in Government. He was awarded Ramon Magsaysay Emergent Leadership award in 2006 for activating India's "Right to Information" movement at grassroots and social activities to empower Indian citizens to fight corruption by holding the government answerable to the people. Currently he is spearheading an awareness campaign for RTI across India.

After graduating as a mechanical engineer from IIT Kharagpur in 1989, he joined the civil services in the Indian Revenue Service (1992). He soon realized that much of the corruption prevalent in government was due to lack of transparency in the process. Even while in his official position, he started crusading against the corrupt practices. After several years on Extra-Ordinary Leave from the Government, he resigned his official post and now devotes full time to his work as the founder-head of Parivartan - a Delhi based citizens' movement trying to ensure a just, transparent and accountable governance.

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Bhargavi S. Rao

Bhargavi S. Rao graduated in Environmental Science and is a Botanist with an M’Phil degree in Aerobiology from Bangalore University. She also has a post graduate diploma in Journalism from the Symbiosis Institute of Mass Communication, Pune. Her initial research experience was in the areas of Microbiology and Cell Biology and she has worked at the Microbiology and Cell Biology Department of the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. She has co-authored research papers in journals like Current Science and Virology. She has had teaching experience as a lecturer in Botany and Microbiology at The BMS College for Women, Bangalore and also as a high School Teacher in Geography and Economics at the Sri. Aurobindo Memorial School, Bangalore. While in Sri. Aurobindo School she initiated a Nature club called ‘Prakruthi’ and mobilized students to take an active interest in bird watching, trekking and understanding urban wildlife. The club is still very active and has a large membership of students from class 5- class 10.

Her interest in education inspired her to facilitate summer camps for children and covered a variety of issues such as nature walks, theatre, pottery, music and rock climbing with an organisation called ‘Aarohi’. The camps caught a lot of children’s interests and were even covered on local Kannada television media during 2000.
Her interest in environmental and social justice issues brought her in 1999 to Environment Support Group (ESG), a not-for-profit research, education and campaign organization. At ESG she initially volunteered for two years and has since taken a leading full time role in a wide variety of Research and Educational projects and Campaign initiatives.

Some key initiatives include research on the impacts of mining on the flora and fauna in the Kudremukh National Park. As a Lead Researcher in development of a range community engagement and worker training techniques in municipal solid waste management in Bangalore and Raichur Districts of Karnataka with projects of ESG funded by the United Nations Environment Programme and the Indo Norwegian Environment Programme. She has worked as senior researcher in documentation and development of Guidelines for Segregation, Collection and Safe Disposal of Hazardous waste in Karnataka in a joint project of ESG with the European Union under the Asia Pro Eco projects in collaboration with the University of Dresden, Germany, University of Bremen, Germany, Can Tho University, Vietnam, and Cardiff University England.

She has also been studying the socio-economic impacts of the Bangalore-Mysore Infrastructure Corridor Project, initiated a survey and documentation of the health impacts of West Coast Paper Mill effluents on tribal communities living along Kali river in North Karnataka, supported the socio-economic survey studies of the Project impacted communities in Chamalapura where a thermal power plant is being proposed and involved in enhancing awareness on environmental governance issues. More recently she has supported the campaign against privatisation of lakes in Bangalore and in contesting the road widening project in Bangalore.

She primarily coordinates educational programmes at ESG with a focus on enhancing student awareness and critical engagement in social and environmental justice issues. She has co-worked as Coordinator of the India sector of the ‘Cities of the 21st Century’ and ‘Health and Community’ courses of the International Honors program where she also co-teaches courses on Contemporary Urban Issues and Culture and Health.

She has helped develop a project to raise awareness on the Environment Impact Assessment Notification 2006 and its implications on communities. She is part of the team working on developing a manual on the same with the intention of building awareness and empowering communities to engage in environmental decision making processes in order to protect their land and livelihoods. As a result of this ongoing process she believes that capacity building of communities across the state of Karnataka and across the country is possible.

She has also been keenly working in the area of developing experiential educational and training programmes for a variety of groups such as activists, journalists and students. She strongly feels that Education and Enforcement are two important criteria and focuses her work on raising awareness on a variety of issues. She has helped raise awareness on equal rights to property for women in many of her social circles. Her interests include Environmental Education, Experiential Education, Gender Issues, Environmental health and Urban and Community studies.

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Chandra Anil

Chandra is an AID-Chennai volunteer who has been working with TNSF to set up primary education support centers in Chennai. She has set up some 60 of these centers, catering to around 1000 children.

She is also the state level coordinator for the Makkal Palli Iyakkam, in charge of expanding the program to around 1000 centers. In addition she along with Ravishankar Arunachalam has taken over coordination of AID-Chennai.

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C Srinivasan

Srinivasan's work integrates reforestation, solid waste management, livelihood generation and cattle rescue. His models in SWM have been applied throughout Vellore District and is being adopted widely in TN and elsewhere.

Srinivasan has designed an innovative and scalable solution to managing solid waste and has generated more than 1,000 jobs, mostly for poor women (also men), who form self-help groups. Srinivasan has saved more than 200 cattle from being slaughtered and is using their dung and urine to generate biogas in 6 plants and for composting in 40 projects, which have so far generated 50,000 tonnes of good quality manure to be used instead of chemical fertilizers by the farmers. This compost is also being used in 4 organic vegetable roof gardens, which improve nutrition levels of people and increases greenery in the city. He has also designed a scheme whereby people can register to have coconut trees planted on their wedding and birthdays. 22 poor villagers previously involved in environmentally destructive (felling trees) activities are working full time to rest more

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Dhanada Mishra

Prof. Dhanada Mishra of AID Orissa has been elected as our latest Saathi. Since he moved back to Orissa in 2003, Dhanada, along with Pete Bakos, has led AID's efforts in his home state. In his position as Principal of JITM in Gajapati district, he was instrumental in setting up an AID base along with Peter, Ravi and Aravinda, in the form of ARTRC (AID Rural Technology Resource Centre). His decision to work full-time for AID-India has the potential to take our efforts in Orissa to the next level in the areas of education, RTI, NREGA and rural technology.

His involvement in AID since late 1999 and his various social activities even before that clearly show his constant drive to make a useful contribution to the society.

AID-Orissa's NREGA efforts in the past few months have unearthed much corruption and gobbling up of public funds in the employment guarantee program.

Click here to learn more about Dhanada Mishra

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Kanchi Kohli

Kanchi Kohli is a social and environmental activist who has been working on environment and forest clearance issues, and their impact on the local communities and the biodiversity of the affected area, for the past nine years. After getting her degree in social work, she proceeded to work in the Uttara Kannada district of Karnataka for two years where she worked with local NGOs on issues related to the impact of development projects on the environment and the local community. In 2000, she moved to New Delhi and has been an active member of the organization, Kalpavriksh Environmental Action Group (KV). As a part of KV, she has been central to the Campaign on Environment Clearance of Development Projects and the Campaign on Biodiversity. As part of these campaigns, she has engaged with policy research and also collaborated with several other civil society groups, and has been a central part of networks such as the Campaign for Environmental Justice, India (CEJ-I).

The core part of Kanchi's work is providing support to local groups across India in responding to development threats in their areas, both in the form of strategy support and information. This national level support is critical to local campaigns and movements.

Click here to learn more about Kanchi Kohli

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Latha Anantha

Latha is a unique individual with a firm foot on environment and communities.

Her work in athriapally struggle (and patharakadavu struggle in silent valley national park) might as well as turn be to be a case study for those involved in anti-dam struggles in South India.

She works extensively with several departments of Kerala for which no stipend/remuneration is paid since the work is voluntary by nature from Latha's side. (Eg: Water, sand mining, river mgmt, forest).

Click here to learn more about Latha Anantha

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Malika Virdi

Malika is an avid mountain, people and nature person. She has worked for nearly 3 decades on various human rights and women rights related issues in many places across India (Rajasthan, Delhi, Gujarat and Uttaranchal). Presently she is the Sarpanch of our (Sarmoli - Jainti) village Forest Council (Van Panchayat) and is a founder member of a womens Collective in Munsiari called Maati and is associated with several regional and national womens and human rights groups.

She was also part of a seven month long women's Trans Himalayan expedition that trekked across the Himalaya from Arunachal Pradesh via Bhutan, Sikkim, Nepal, Uttaranchal, Himachal, right up till the northernmost point of India called the Karakoram Pass.

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Nammalvarji

Nammalvarji's main work is transformation of Agriculture into a system of community based self reliant and ecologically sound and sustainable, poison-free food production.

Eighty percent of Indian farmers are resource poor, owning land holdings of less than one hectare. Most of them are less educated. They need demonstration and practical training in natural and material resource management.

Nammalvarji has been working on this for more than 30 years. In order to fulfil this objective, he has already set up more than sixty training centers around South India. He travels extensively giving advice in organic farming and Low External Input and Sustainable agriculture. He has published his knowledge already in pamphlets and books which he distributes to farmers free of charge, and he needs to continue that. According to him, organic seeds and cattle breeds are to be collected and conserved. A number of farms are maintained by NGOs and farmers. They need to be upgraded and more and more youth are to be trained. This Saathiship will enable him to continue his work.

Already more than 60 model farms are set up in Tamil Nadu, fifty of them functioning as Training centers. Also several farmer, NGO networks (Tamil Nadu Organic Farmers Network, Tamil Nadu LEISA Network etc) have been set up. Nammalvar ji performed several Padyatras over the last decade for awareness and campaigning. For his work he got an Honorary Doctorate from Gandhigram University, TN.

Nammalvarji led special task force for de-salination of Tsunami affected land and he is one of 5 people who successfully fought the Neem Patent case..

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Nityanand Jayaraman

Nityanand Jayaraman a.k.a Nity is a Chennai-based writer and researcher who specializes in investigating and reporting on the environmental and human rights track record of corporations. After his undergraduate degree in electronics engineering, he spent two years in the US, getting a Masters degree in journalism, hitchhiking in the US and working in the salmon fisheries in Alaska. He returned to India in 1994, and was a traveling journalist, during which time he traveled to most parts of the country specializing in investigating industrial pollution and related human rights violations. He has been associated with the campaign for justice in Bhopal since the time he visited Bhopal to do a story on water contamination in 1996. He has also worked with Greenpeace India and Corpwatch India.

Nity is a part of a voluntary collective called Corporate Accountability Desk which is a coming together of close friends who extend technical, logistics, legal and strategic support to communities that are fighting corporate crime and globalization in any form. Learning from their experiences where organizations take up democratic space rather than create it for communities, one of the principal organizing principles is to let communities speak for themselves. Currently, the collective is involved in a fledgling effort to consolidate public opinion against water privatisation in Tamilnadu, in promoting wastewater recycling, in supporting pollution-impacted communities in Mettur, Cuddalore and Gummidipoondi, and to a lesser extent in Kodaikanal.

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Peter Bakos

Peter Bakos has worked extensively in establishing AID Orissa, linking with NGOs and training artisans in bamboo and other handicraft work. Prior to his association with AID, Peter was a master trainer at Academy of Developmental Sciences (ADS) in Karjat Dt, Maharashtra, Bhubaneswar.

When Peter visited the TN villages he got the first boat repaired and was able to give demonstrations with the interlocking brick machine that he carried there.

Peter currently works actively with AID Chennai.

Click here to view an Album of his work

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Prasanna Saligram

Prasanna Saligram has been involved actively with AID for the past 8 years. He helped organize the first AID India Conference and worked on the Hundred Block Plan (HBP) in Tamilnadu. After a brief stint in Germany, he returned to India to work with the People's Health Movement, a global alliance that of health networks and activists that works to promote the participation of people and people's organizations in the formulation, implementation and evaluation of all health and social policies and programmes. He served as the Communications Officer for the People's Health Assembly held in Cuenca, Ecuador in July 2005.
Prasanna coordinated a campaign opposing amendments to the Indian Patent Act. He has played a significant role in explaining the impact of these amendments to AID volunteers and the community at large.
Since 2005, Prasanna has been working with AID India on a full-time basis. He coordinated tsunami relief efforts from Bangalore, especially some medical camps. Currently, he is working on a comprehensive health Ppogram in some blocks in Karnataka, a sustainable agriculture project in some villages near Bangalore and other AID activities.

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Ravindra Sharma

For past 2 decades, Ravindra Sharma (fondly referred to by everyone as Guruji) has been working with artisans in the Adilabad district of AP and is the founder of Kala Ashram. Kala Ashram is meant to be an ashram for traditional arts, science and technology. Guruji himself is an encyclopedia of information about the traditional rural Indian arts, science, and society.

1) Resource provisioning: Kala Ashram's museum also serves as a resource base for artists and artisans who do not have access to tools and accessories. For instance, the Dakkalodu or the community historian of the Maadiga (leather crafting) community in the Adilabad region often borrows his musical instruments and the scroll from the museum to perform to his local audience. These scrolls, painted by the Naquashi community, are expensive and take years to prepare.

2) Karigar gurukuls: Every year, Guruji organizes karigar gurukuls, where artisans improve or innovate techniques, pass them on to younger members of their community, or teach them to groups belonging to other communities.

3) Study of traditional social organization: Guruji has been observing and studying the traditional social organization, and one recent effort is to document/record the dying arts of the Bhiksha vruttis, who sing/tell the oral history of other castes, while living off their patronage.

4) Documentation: Guruji intends to document much of his understanding of traditional arts, science, technology and social organization in the form of booklets. He also intends to document many of the activities of Kala Ashram such as the workshops and the performances of the Bhiksha vruttis.

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Revathi

"Whenever we visit farmers who have attended our training sessions to found out how they are doing, they ask us, 'Why did it take you so long to show us these techniques?'"

While working on a science project with her 8th Std. students in 2002, Revathi, a school teacher and environmentalist discovered acute discontent, frustration and indebtedness among farmers. Further investigation revealed that India's green revolution and heavy reliance on chemical inputs and hybrid seeds had rendered the farming community resource-poor and debt-ridden. She realized that organic farming techniques could be a simple solution for farmer's problems.

She quit her job to work with Nammalwarji, a leader of organic farmer movements in TN, to provide training and support to farmers throughout Tamilnadu and beyond. After the Indian Ocean Tsunami in Dec 2004, she visited agricultural villages in Nagapattinam dt. where, due to the inflow of sea water, large quantities of agricultural lands turned saline and crops were destroyed. This motivated Revathi to work in one of the worst affected village South Podhigai Nallur (S.P.Nallur). With funding from a German NGO and AID, she started work in this area in March 2005. With able support from the collector of Nagapattinam and the villagers and more funding, she brought the lands of SP Nallur and 3 nearby villages back to full productivity.

Revathi is currently working on a number of projects - training and resource center establishment, developing a group of trainers who can further spread the word and a magazine on organic farming 'Thai Mane Vanakkam'.

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Richa Singh

"Inspite of realizing that people will leave us and join us too, I have been worried about maintaining the unity of our collective under any circumstances. Now, after meeting various groups and learning from them, I realize that this is part of the process. The issues we raise and the struggles we undertake are important other things will fall into place as we proceed on our journey."

Richa started her work on women's empowerment and related issues with an organization in Uttar Pradesh, rising through its ranks to become the district-level coordinator in Sitapur. She facilitated a journalling project with 7 field-level staff members and Richa Nagar, a Women's Studies professor at the University of Minnesota. Working on this project, which culminated in the publication of a book 'Sangtin yatra' ('Playing with Fire' in English), the women developed a voice and perspective on the local and global issues affecting their lives. A few years ago, they had formed an organization, Sangtin, and begun operating schools in the area. Now they decided to do more.

Income generating activities such as a milk collection center and chikan work were taken up. Richa quit her job in order to focus more on Sangtin's activities. Through sustained discussions with villagers, the availability of water was taken up. Two of the women in the group have contested local elections. In August 2005, 5 members of the collective went on an exposure trip to Gujarat and Maharashtra to visit 3 NGOs/Peoples' movements and learn from their work.

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Shibu Nair

Shibu Nair is associated with Thanal since the past 10 years and has worked on varous environmental issues in kerala. Currently AID-bayarea is supporting a project Zero-waste Kovalam in kerala.

Shibu is the main coordinator interacting with the government, the local hotel and trade associations and the local people
Since 2003, Shibu has been involved with the zero waste kovalam project, that aims at alternatives to incinerators and landfills, and generate livelihoods based on recycling and reusing the waste products. The idea is to setup small community based centers where waste is processed within the community.

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Smitha Kalyani

Smitha Kalyani was one of the first AID India volunteers. While at BITS Pilani, she was active in the AID chapter there, involved in running tuition centers and libraries in the area. After graduation, she moved to Bangalore and continued to be active with AID. After quitting her job with Wipro, she became a full-time volunteer with AID Chennai. She played a central role in coordinating AID India's Relief and Rehabilitation work after the Indian Ocean tsunami in December 2004.

Since becoming an AID India Saathi, Smitha has been working with AID Chennai and AID Bangalore on a number of health and education initiatives, including an Integrated Block program in Sulagiri block of Krishnagiri district in Tamilnadu.

A number of teams from AID Chennai, along with Smitha and other AID Bangalore workers, have running Integrated Block development programs in Sulagiri. A report of their work for May to December 2005 can be found here

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Souparna Lahiri

Souparna Lahiri has been a social activist since 1985, having worked with PUCL (People’s Union for Civil Liberties), Butterflies (Delhi based NGO), Center for Education and Communication and lastly with Delhi Forum. He has worked on issues of the rights of street children, campaigned for the labour rights of the informal sector, bonded labour, fishworkers etc. He has also been engaged with many small people’s movements in the northeast and other tribal regions of India. He is a prolific writer and has published articles in many journals and magazines. His intellectual work is informed and shaped by reality at the grassroots.

During his work with the Delhi Forum he has interacted closely with leaders like Medha Patkar and Thomas Kocherry. Souparna has interacted with various ministries of the Central Government and has a good understanding of the processes required in engaging with the State.
Lahiri sees himself as a campaigner and a campaign builder, trying to bring together many small movements and taking their voice to the corridors of power. His primary focus area for next couple of years will be northeast.

AID will strive to learn from Souparna Lahiri’s work in the northeast, the aspirations and perceptions of the people there; how issues and movements are connected at the local and national level and mechanisms of engaging with the State. We also hope to work with him on evaluating and critiquing policies put out by the government.

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Swati Desai

Swati Desai and her husband Michael Mazgaonkar, are social and environmental activists who have been living and working in Juna Mozda, a tribal village in the Bharuch district of Gujarat, since 1991. In Mozda, they have been involved in soil and water conservation, organizing a women's cooperative for tuvar dal processing, savings programs and dairy, primary health care, and in training local youth for community projects. In 2002 they won the Rural Development award (instituted by the Development Support Center in Ahmedabad) for their work in watershed management.

Michael and Swati are also two of the founders of Paryavaran Suraksha Samiti (PSS), an organization campaigning against environmental pollution in the "golden" and "silver" corridors of Gujarat. An enthusiast in the field of appropriate technology and renewable energy, Michael was one of the key participants in the pedal power project funded by AID. Michael and Swati are members of the coordinating committee of the National Alliance of People's Movements (NAPM).

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Sridhar R

Sridhar is one of the four full time activists working with Thanal. Sridhar joined Thanal in 1996-97 after he quit his decade long professional engineering carrier, which encompassed stints with National Thermal Power Corporation, teaching at an Engineering College and also functioning as the acting head of the department in the college before leaving to take up full time activism. Sridhar is very involved in political advocacy, research and policy related campaigning work related to sustainable agriculture in Kerala and Tamilnadu. Sustained efforts by Sridhar and Usha are bearing fruit in the form of invitations to various fora for holding wokshops on sustainable agriculture, paddy field conservation, landrights discussion, organic food marketing so on and so forth. Sridhar and Usha are part of various consultative committees set up by the govt of Kerala with reference to paddy land conservation, making Kerala GM free and other sustainable agriculture issues. In addition Thanal has initiated a bi-weekly organic bazaar in Thiruvanathapuram providing the space and support for women from farming households to run their own organic market. The bazaar has generated considerable interest in natural food and has a mix of new and regular customers and invariably everything is sold out.

Sridhar is also involved in formulating successful organic/natural food marketing strategies for farmers and farmer group in Kerala and Tamilnadu. Sridhar has been constantly touring southern states to meet farmers, students, agriculture department scientists and thereby has been successful in the three prong strategy of influencing policy, building alternatives to the dominant paradigm, and creating awareness. Activism is woven into his personal life as well. With active support from his father, a retired professional, sridhar is in the process of encouraging the households in their neighbourhood to shift to a zero waste program which involves creating a vermin-compost pit in every home.

Another area where Sridhar has defied the established paradigm is in choosing to educate his son in a small parent-child friendly Malayalam medium school. It doesn't stop there, he has become an active participant of the parent teacher group and through that has influenced the school to start gardening and agriculture awareness activities for the children.

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Swetha Narayan

Swetha Narayan works in SIPCOT-Cuddalore area in the areas of environmental protection.

Her main areas of work include:

1. Community Environment Monitoring by setting up volunteer groups that monitor and collect periodic and systematic health information.

2. Setting up and maintaining socio-technical research groups that conduct research about the pollution affected areas in the country and start documenting data.

3. Bringing various pollution affected communities from all over India (including places like Bhopal, Jadugoda, Cuddalore, Mettur etc) into a National Federation of pollution affected communities for discussions.

4. Educating and encouraging youth to pursue areas of social work and public interest professions.

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Tara Ahluvalia

Taraji has been working with women's issues in the Bhilwada dist. of Rajasthan since 1986. She started her stint in the area as a social-worker in UNICEF funded "Women's Development Program." After the decade-long project ended, she stayed on to serve as an advocate for the rural women who continue to seek her out. Taraji holds degrees in Psychology and Social Work, and has authored many articles on women's issues. Her book on witch-hunting in Bhilwada is awaiting release.

Taraji continues her fight to raise awareness about violence against women in every form- female foeticide, dowry deaths, domestic violence, rape. Her work with witch-hunting victims has led to the Govt. of Rajasthan drafting the "Dayan Virodhi Act." She is working to educate UNICEF and other organizations about "natha-pratha." Her sustained work with women has led to a community that is more sensitized towards this issue and a more supportive judiciary.

She hopes to continue with her initiatives and ideas in Bhilwada with some upcoming projects like Sangharshsheel Mahila Mela, which is a mela inviting about 200 women who have fought brave struggles to provide a platform for collective strength to emerge. The mela can build a solidarity and help in identifying women who can take this work forward. The women will be honored and the team of lawyers and sensitive police officers will also be honored.

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