Sunitha Narain

Sunita Narain

The great Indian environmentalist and political activist as well as a major proponent of the Green concept of sustainable development is Sunita Narain. She is currently the director of the Centre and the director of the Society for Environmental Communications and publisher of the fortnightly magazine, Down To Earth. Her criticism of international soft drink makers Coca-Cola and PepsiCo that has won Narain the most attention from media. She heads, Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), monitors air pollution levels around India, studies the effects of climate change and even runs training courses that show businesspeople and students how to lead greener lives.

Her achievements:

In 2005 and again in 2008 and 2009 she was included by US journal Foreign Policy as one of the world’s 100 public intellectuals. In 2005 she was awarded the Padma Shri by the Indian government. She has also received the World Water Prize for work on rainwater harvesting and for its policy influence in building paradigms for community based water management. In 2005, she also chaired the Tiger Task Force at the direction of the Prime Minister, to evolve an action plan for conservation in the country after the loss of tigers in Sariska.

Publications

1. In 1989 Sunita co-authored the publication Towards Green Villages advocating local participatory democracy as the key to sustainable development.
2. In 1991 she co-authored the publication Global Warming in an Unequal World: A case of environmental colonialism
3. In 1992 she co authored Towards a Green World: Should environmental management be built on legal conventions or human rights?
4. Since the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, she has worked on a number of articles and papers on issues related to flexibility mechanisms and the need for equity and entitlements in climate negotiations.
5. In 2000, she co-edited the publication Green Politics: Global Environmental Negotiations, which looks at the emerging ecological globalisation framework and puts forward an agenda for the South on global negotiations.
6. In 1997, pushing the concern for water harvesting, she co-edited the book Dying Wisdom: Rise, Fall and Potential of India's Water Harvesting Systems.
7. Since then, she has worked on a number of articles on the policy interventions needed for ecoregeneration of India’s rural environment and poverty reduction.
8. In 1999, she co-edited the State of India’s Environment, The Citizens' Fifth Report and in 2001, Making Water Everybody’s Business: the practice and policy of water harvesting.

~Coutesy: Wikipedia~