Past ESG Members

Anirudh Menon

A mechanical engineering graduate with a passion for environmental and wildlife conservation. Anirudh has interned briefly with other non profits in the past. He is an amateur wildlife photographer and an avid trekking enthusiast.

Varun M J

Varun is an Innovation Consultant with 17 years of broad experience in Research, IT, Operations and Management. He has worked on a plethora of projects with international firms, start ups and non-profit organizations. His work with Innovation & Management involves leveraging Design Thinking strategy for empathizing with the users, citing out the need for understanding & observing the pain points of the end-user. An individual of manifold interests, Varun possesses a logical and human-centric approach towards challenges.

Janani S

Janani is an architect, who has worked for 7 years in the sustainable building design space through research based practice called Mud Hands architects, Bangalore as a design faculty in CEPT, Ahmedabad, teaching climate responsive design. She has worked to demystify sustainable architecture by organising capacity building amongst various student groups. As an avid trekker, she loves to immerse herself in nature. She assisted ESG in various educative programmes.

Shruti

Shruti is an active environment and climate enthusiast with an educational background in law and masters in Environment and natural resources law. She has extensive internship experience with policy organizations, human rights law firms and Advocates working for environmental protection in India. She was working at Environment Support Group to contribute to effective implementation of environmental law via engagement with the local communities, judiciary, government authorities, law makers etc.

M Eswarappa

Esha is a commons activist with over two decades of experience in protecting water commons and biodiversity in Karnataka. He is also a well published development photographer having co-organized five photo argumentations on crucial socio-political and policy related issues. He assisted ESG in conducting district level capacity building programmes on conservation and rehabilitation of lakes and such other water commons.

Ashwin Mario Lobo

Ashwin has an undergraduate degree in Commerce from Christ College. A Young India Fellow from Ashoka University, he has lived with and learnt from several voluntary communities engaged in restoration ecology, across India. Ashwin’s interests include rewilding, eastern philosophy and environmental justice. Ashwin was associated with ESG as a Research Associate.

Shrestha Chowdhury

Shrestha has a Masters degree in Developmental Studies from Christ University. She has formerly worked as a Counselor and Consultant. She is enthusiastic about the topic of lakes and did an exploratory study on lake rejuvenation in Bangalore for her dissertation. Her areas of interest include water management, urban governance and forest rights.

Sana Huque

Sana has a Masters degree in Geography from Delhi School of Economics and Ph.D. in Sociology from Indian Institute of Technology Bombay. In her Ph.D. thesis, Sana has studied wetland loss, as well as its conservation, from a sociological perspective, and with a special focus on the East Kolkata Wetlands.

Mallesha K. R

Mallesh was with ESG from the time of its inception. He has a degree in Sociology and has more than two decades of experience in field assisting in various ESG campaigns, educational programmes, Public Interest Litigation and administration work. He hails from Coorg and has a deep understanding of the agricltural practices in India and the changing scenario. He was invited to University of Washington Seattle in 2013 to speak on “Who knows what, what it means”. Till 2020, he was the administrator of ESG, assisted in all campaign, advocacy, research and litigation initiatives, and also oversaw all the field activities.

Ayush Joshi

Ayush graduated from Doon College of Agriculture in Agricultural Sciences and has a postgraduate degree in Development from Azim Premji University, Bangalore. He has previously interned with the 'Ekta Parishad' in Madhya Pradesh and continues to work voluntarily with 'Aarambh', a youth collective in Uttarakhand. He is interested in exploring energy and environmental linkages. He likes to draw on paper and digital mediums

Karthik Anjanappa

Malvika Kaushik

Malvika has an undergraduate degree in law from the National Law School of India University, Bangalore. She has formerly worked at the Supreme Court of India as a law clerk and research assistant. She has also volunteered at the Narmada Bachao Andolan and writes India Climate Feed, a newsletter on climate change.

Dr. Swetha Rao Dhananka

Dr. Swetha is a sociologist and teaches at Haute Ecole de Travail Social, Fribourg, Switzerland. Swetha consults with ESG in matters of urban governance, in developing training workshops for various audiences, in studying participatory processes, supports fund raising and in optimizing organizational learning. She obtained her PhD from the University of Lausanne in Switzerland and was a post-doc fellow at the Development Planning Unit at UCL (London) and the Indian Institute of Human Settlements (Bangalore). Her research examines urbanisation in the Global South – particularly with regard to its social effects, various institutional responses and political claim-making. She consults with ESG on research and educational projects.

Sachin

Sachin is a lawyer by profession who has a deep passion for social and environmental justice. He has worked at both non-profits as well as law firms. After completing the YPPLE fellowship at Centre for Social Justice, Ahmedabad, he went on to complete his LL.M in Law and Development from Azim Premji University, Bangalore. He has also worked for Dua Associates and Oxfam India. He hopes to bring his human rights and legal experience into the environmental governance field as he believes that all these areas need to work in tandem and should be viewed holistically in order to bring about long-lasting change. Email: [email protected]