Speakers

• Bhargavi S. Rao Moderator
  

  Bhargavi S. Rao

  Moderator

  Bhargavi S. Rao works at the intersections of community action with law, policy, planning and governance. She has about 30 years of experience across research, advocacy, campaign and teaching in a variety of human rights, governance and people-centred initiatives, and in advancing environmental and social justice. She is currently Director (Research) at the Centre for Financial Accountability and is a Senior Fellow & Trustee at Environment Support Group.

  She has extensive experience in coordinating and teaching a variety of educational programmes. She has coordinated the Knowledge 2 Action Academy offered by the Swissnex India, she was Co-Director of Minnesota Studies in International Development, (India Programme), University of Minnesota and Cities in the 21st Century and Health and Community programmes of International Honours Programme (Boston University & SIT). She has also taught on faculty led Study Abroad programmes (eg. University of Washington, Seattle). She is guest faculty at universities in India and abroad (Eg. Azim Premji University, National Law School of India University, Christ University, St. Joseph’s College, Bhoomi College) and also engages in corporate training.

• Carol Upadhya
  

  Carol Upadhya

  Carol Upadhya, a social anthropologist, studies a range of social transformations in contemporary India, including processes of spatial and social mobility, the globalisation of cities and provincial towns and the urbanisation of rural landscapes; speculative land and real estate markets and their implications for local communities; skilling, labour migration, and employment, and labour migration in the construction industry.

  Prof. Upadhya was Co-director of the Provincial Globalisation and Speculative Urbanism projects at NIAS. She has received research grants from the National Science Foundation (USA), Azim Premji Foundation, Indian Council for Social Science Research (ICSSR), WOTRO Science for Global Development of the NWO (Netherlands), and the Indo-Dutch Programme on Alternatives in Development (Netherlands).

  She has been a visiting scholar at Central European University, Budapest, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, Goettingen, Germany, and the International Institute of Asian Studies, Amsterdam. Upadhya is Co-editor of the Journal for South Asian Development and a member of the Editorial Board for Contributions to Indian Sociology.

• Kathleen Dorgan
  

  Kathleen Dorgan

  Kathleen Dorgan, FAIA, LEED-AP principal of Dorgan Architecture and Planning of Storrs, CT, USA specializes in resilient participatory community design and development for communities of choice and justice. Her work includes arts and place-based planning, design of high-performance affordable housing, main street revitalization, structuring green initiatives and technical assistance to not-for-profit organizations and public agencies. Her projects have been exhibited in the National Building Museum and museums and galleries throughout the US. She received a Harvard Loeb Fellowship and an US Department of Housing and Urban Development Fellowship. Ms. Dorgan an active volunteer and is a frequent international speaker, instructor and writer about resilient design and incremental community development.

• Leo F. Saldanha Moderator
  

  Leo F. Saldanha

  Moderator

  Leo F. Saldanha is full-time Coordinator and also Trustee of ESG. He has gained wide-ranging experience in the areas of Environmental Law and Policy, Decentralisation, Urban Planning and a variety of Human Rights and Development related issues, working across many sectors for over a decade. He is a keen campaigner on critical environmental and social justice issues and has guided several campaigns demanding evolution of progressive laws and effective action. He has creatively supported various distressed communities to secure justice through public interest litigations and advocacy efforts, arguing as party in person several public interest litigations, many of which have resulted in remarkable judgments. He has a background in Environmental Science. Leo has been invited as a speaker by organisations and universities across the world. He assists various Government agencies in evolving law and policy relating to environmental justice. In recognition of his contribution to environmental and social justice efforts, Association for India’s Development, USA, made him their first AID Saathi.

• Naresh V Narasimhan
  

  Naresh V Narasimhan

  Naresh V Narasimhan is the Managing Partner at VA – Venkataramanan Associates, a multi- disciplinary award-winning architecture firm based in Bangalore. Steeped in values of design quality, integrity, commitment and ethics, VA has held a steady reputation for the design of benchmark projects across typologies since 1969.

  Naresh trained as an architect at the Manipal Institute of Technology, India (B Arch 1985) & further studied management at Harvard in 1995. He founded the MOD Institute, an action- oriented think tank addressing highly relevant urban design issues and is a trustee of Suchitra Cinema & Cultural Academy. His interests range from politics, governance & communication strategies to cinema, art, and popular culture.

• Prem Chandavarkar
  

  Prem Chandavarkar

  Prem Chandavarkar is the managing partner of CnT Architects: an award-winning and widely published architectural practice based in Bangalore, India. He received his training at School of Planning and Architecture Delhi (B.Arch., 1978) and University of Oregon USA (M.Arch., 1982).

  He is a former Executive Director of Srishti Institute of Art Design & Technology in Bangalore; and currently a member of the board of the Architecture Culture & Spirituality Forum, USA. He is an academic advisor and guest faculty at Indian and international colleges of architecture.

  Besides his design practice at CnT, he writes, lectures and blogs on architecture, urbanism, philosophy, politics, education, environment, art, and cultural studies.

• Tushar Giri Nath
  

  Tushar Giri Nath

  Tushar Giri Nath, who holds B.Tech degree in mechanical engineering and MBA in human resource management, belongs to the 1993 batch of IAS officers and hails from Uttar Pradesh. He has been in Karnataka for over 25 years, holding several state government positions. He was chairperson of Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board for over four years.