Leo Saldanha is the co-ordinator of Environment Support Group, a Bangalore-based organization. He is widely experienced in the areas of Environmental Law and Policy, Decentralization, Urban Planning and a variety of other development-related issues. He has also supported various distressed communities in securing justice through public interest litigations and advocacy.
Rishi Aggarwal is an activist and Research Fellow at Observer Research Foundation, Mumbai. He has worked on numerous environmental and urban issues, and with several organizations over 15 years. He is also the founder of Mumbai Environmental Social Network and Mumbai Walking Project.
Dr S. R. Maley, a scientist based in Mumbai, has worked extensively in the fields of agronomy, biotechnology and environment in India and abroad, with a special focus on solid waste management. He can be contacted on
Dr Sharad Kale is the Head of the Technology Transfer Division of the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai. He has designed the Nisargruna biogas technology which has been used to set up several biogas plants in the country. He has also been awarded the Padma Shri for his contribution to a green society. He can be contacted on
Nuriel Pezarkar is a Pune-based entrepreneur. He is currently working on the scientific waste management of garbage generated by bulk generators.
Ravi Agarwal is Director at Toxics Link, an organization dealing in hazardous waste management as an area of focus. A communications engineer, he has pioneered public advocacy-based work in the area of chemicals and waste.
Social activist Malati Gadgil has worked with waste pickers in Delhi and Pune and is currently networking to strengthen organizations of waste pickers in Asia. She is the co-founder of Pune-based SWaCH Plus, which works on upgrading waste pickers' skills and improving their livelihoods.
Saru Waghmare began her career as a waste picker in the 1980s and is one of the earliest members of Kagad Kach Patra Kashtakari Panchayat. She is now the waste manager at the Pune offices of the Reserve Bank of India. Waghmare is also the director, scriptwriter and lead performer of a theatre troupe that stages productions on the streets. Her productions urge, tease, cajole and provoke the audience to think about the issues that she is passionate about waste pickers' livelihoods, women's rights, communalism and caste.
Lakshmi Narayanan, social activist and researcher, is the founder of Kagad Kach Patra Kashtakari Panchayat, a Pune-based trade union of self-employed waste pickers and informal waste recyclers. Lakshmi is also a co-founder of SWaCH, India's first wholly owned cooperative of waste pickers who have successfully scripted their exit from landfills and garbage bins. Her beliefs are strongly rooted in progressive, equitable and gender-just, anti-caste, anti-communal, participatory and democratic transformative politics.
Vivek Yadav is an IAS officer of the 2008 batch from Andhra Pradesh. He is an engineer and a graduate in Computer Science. During his stint as Municipal Commissioner, Warangal was recognized as Best Heritage City by Government of India.
Dr B. Janardhan Reddy is the Commissioner and Director of Municipal Administration, Government of Andhra Pradesh.
C. Srinivasan is a project director of Indian Green Service, an environmental organization. He has developed a solid and liquid resource management model, also known as the Vellore model, that has been adopted by many states in India. He can be contacted on
Dr R. Vasudevan is the Dean and Head of the Department of Chemistry at Thiagarajar College of Engineering in Madurai. In 2001, he invented a technology that uses plastic waste to construct more durable roads. Several plastic roads have since been laid out in various cities in India with the help of this technology. He can be contacted on
Dr Almitra Patel is a Bangalore-based civil engineer who graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is also Convener of the INTACH Waste Network and has won many awards for her contribution towards the environment.