Our Director - Bharati Chaturvedi

Bharati Chaturvedi is an environmentalist and writer. She is the founder and director of Chintan Environmental Research and Action Group. She conceived Chintan as a  partnership between the urban poor in the informal sector and people like herself (urbanites concerned about environmental justice). The objective of such a partnership was to advocate for cities that are green, sustainable and inclusive of the poor in their terms. Bharati felt the need for a Chintan-like space because it allowed her freedom from the rhetoric of received wisdom and politically correct constructs, and the opportunity to pursue new ideas.

Her education includes a Master's Degree in History from Delhi University and a Masters in International Public Policy from the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Johns Hopkins University. Among her key awards and fellowships are a LEAD (Leadership in Environment and Development) fellowship in 2005, and an ongoing tenure as Senior Fellow of the Synergos Institute in New York. She also received the Knowledge for the World Award, 2009 from the Johns Hopkins Alumni association.
 
As part of her policy advocacy work, Bharati has served on various committees of the Government of India, most recently, the Expert Committee on Plastic Waste, set up by the Ministry of Environment and Forests to finalize rules for plastic waste handling, and a Task Force for social security for the informal sector, set up by the Ministry of Labour and Employment. She has also been involved in consultations about the Indian government's Hazardous Waste Strategy and Electronic Waste Rules.

Bharati writes widely. You can read her weekly column, Earthwatch, every Monday in the Hindustan Times. She also blogs for the Huffington Post. She has also edited Finding Delhi: Loss and Renewal in the Megacity, published by Penguin India in October 2010.

Bharati speaks regularly about the issues she works on, as part of her work to build a wider community of support for Chintan's mission, and is widely quoted on issues of environmental justice.

Before she set up Chintan, Bharati was one of the founders of Srishti, an environmental group formed by students at Delhi University to address environmental concerns. She has also worked as a consultant to various national and international organizations.

In addition to her work at Chintan, Bharati has engaged for several years with contemporary Indian art and has been an art critic with the Indian Express, the Financial Express and the Business Standard. She has also written catalogue essays and undertaken special projects.