Sunita Narain

Sunita Narain is an Indian environmentalist and political activist as well as a major proponent of the Green concept of sustainable development. Narain has been with the India-based Centre for Science and Environment since 1982. She is currently the director general of the Centre for Science and Environment and the director of the Society for Environmental Communications and publisher of the fortnightly magazine, Down To Earth.

In her years at the Centre, she has worked hard at analysing and studying the relationship between environment and development and at creating public consciousness about the need for sustainable development. Over the years, she has also developed the management and financial support systems needed for the institution, which has over 100 staff members and a dynamic program profile. She is currently in charge of the Centre's management and plays an active role in a number of research projects and public campaigns.^[1]

Activities

She began her career by writing and researching for the State of India's Environment reports and then went on to study issues related to forest management. For this project she traveled across the country to understand people's management of natural resources. In the early 1990s she got involved with global environmental issues and she continues to work on these as researcher and advocate.Her research interests are wide-ranging - from global democracy, with a special focus on climate change, to the need for local democracy, within which she has worked both on forest-related resource management and water-related issues. Narain remains an active participant, both nationally and internationally, in civil society.^[1]

She serves on the boards of various organisations and on governmental committees and has spoken at many forums across the world on issues of her concern and expertise. In 2008 Narain delivered the K R Narayanan Oration^[2] on "Why Environmentalism Needs Equity: Learning from the environmentalism of the poor to build our common future".^[3]

2013 Cycling Accident

She was injured in a road accident while cycling near the All India Institute of Medical Sciences on 20 October 2013 Sunday morning. Her bicycle was hit by a speeding car in the early hours of the day while she was going to Lodhi Garden from her house in Green Park. The car driver did not stop and she was rushed to AIIMS by a passerby. She suffered facial injuries and orthopaedic injuries to the hand.^[4]

Publications

• In 1989 Sunita co-authored the publication Towards Green Villages advocating local participatory democracy as the key to sustainable development.
• In 1991 she co-authored the publication Global Warming in an Unequal World: A case of environmental colonialism^[5]
• In 1992 she co authored Towards a Green World: Should environmental management be built on legal conventions or human rights?
• 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.
• In 2000, she co-edited the publication Green Politics: Global Environmental Negotiations,^[6] which looks at the emerging ecological globalisation framework and puts forward an agenda for the South on global negotiations.
• 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.
• 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.^[8]

Awards

• In 2005, she was awarded the Padma Shri by the Government of India.^[1]

• In 2005 the Centre for Science and Environment under her leadership was awarded the Stockholm Water Prize.

• She was awarded an honorary Doctor of Science by the University of Calcutta in 2009.^[9]

• Was conferred with the Raja-Lakshmi Award for the year 2009 from Sri Raja-Lakshmi Foundation, Chennai.

References

External links

• Indian Environmentalist Sunita Narain on US Climate Policy - video report by Democracy Now!