Veer Ojas is a 16-year-old who is deeply concerned about climate action and shares a deep emotional connect with Indian forests, having an ecologically inclined family and surrounding. In February 2019, he became aware of the threat to Aravalis, and subsequently attended a series of protests against the PLPA Amendment, including a long human chain along the Sunset Boulevard in Gurgaon. Shortly after, with Manya Anandi, he was a part of a team of children and adults who organised the first Fridays For Future Protest in India on 26th March. However, they felt that this needs to be a children led movement, and formed Climate Action Gurgaon in May. Since then, they have organised the largest children-led protests in India.He feels that it is important to sensitise ourselves to what we are fighting for, so CAG organised walks through the Aravalli Biodiversity Park, and shortly after organised a 400 children protest to protect the Aravallis.

Sadhviji is a renowned female spiritual leader in India. She is Secretary-General of Global Interfaith WASH Alliance, launched by UNICEF, the worlds first alliance of religious leaders for Water, Sanitation and Hygiene, President of Divine Shakti Foundation, a charitable organization bringing education and empowerment to women and children, and Director of the world-famous International Yoga Festival. She also serves as Vice-Chair of the United Nations Advisory Council on Religion, and on the Steering Committee of the Partnership for Religion and Sustainable Development. Sadhviji has received numerous awards and recognition for her leadership in India, including from the Cabinet Minister of Water Resources as well as from the Ambassador of the United States to India.

Dia Mirza is an actor, producer, UN Environment Goodwill Ambassador & United Nations Advocate for Sustainable Development Goals. As a champion of nature, Dia Mirza dons many a hat with lan and ease.

Today, Dia has become the voice of environmental and wildlife conservation in the country and a torchbearer for causes related to nature. She was appointed as the United Nations Environment Goodwill Ambassador for India at the UNEA assembly held in Nairobi. She championed the campaign #BeatPlasticPollution along with the UN leading to World Environment Day in 2018 when India was host nation leading to the historic declaration by PM Modi to make India Single Use Plastics Free by 2022. Her exhaustive list of titles include Founder member of Wildlife Trust of Indias Club Nature, Ambassador Wildlife Trust Of India, Ambassador for the Swachh Bharat Missions Swachh Saathi program, Ambassador for Sanctuary Asias Tiger Conservation Kids For Tigers program, Member of the Governing Board of the Sanctuary Nature Foundation, and the first Indian Ambassador for Save the Children. She believes that the creative arts, cinema, documentaries and photography are powerful tools for social change and conservation.

As the forerunner in reigniting and strengthening the relation between man and nature, Dia is a champion of nature in its truest sense.

Suman Devathiya is a senior Dalit leader from Rajasthan and has been working with the community for more than 15 years. Hailing from the community, she brings with her vast knowledge of human rights law and access to justice for most marginalized communities.

Currently, she associated with All India Dalit Mahila Adhikar Manch in Rajasthan, raising the issues of Dalit women, She is working to protect their rights. Suman brings with her great courage, passion, commitment and energy for the movement. She has independently led Dalit Woman Self Respect March across more than 20 districts of Rajasthan.Earlier this year, she was nominated by Rafto Foundation to attend the four days training on Women, Business and Rights held in Delhi. She has brought in the critical perspective of Dalit women in this discourse.

After 10 years of being a prime time radio show host and content producer with Indias leading radio broadcast networks, Sucharita Tyagi now works with media brands, publications, and partnerships across the Times Bridge network. Shes also one of the most popular, and more fun film critics on the circuit, her YouTube show Not A Movie Review has garnered a sizeable following over the last few years. Sucharita writes for TV shows, is a live events emcee, does not shy away from schooling trolls in the YouTube comment section, and is overall a super neat person.

A classical dancer and a political activist, Sharmistha Mukherjee is a woman with many interests. A highly accomplished Kathak dancer and choreographer, Sharmistha has performed extensively in India and over forty countries abroad. A regular speaker in seminars, Sharmistha has been vocal about women empowerment; sharing her concerns about gender disparity, safety and security of women in India. An active member of Indian National Congress, she is the President of Delhi Pradesh Mahila Congress and a national spokesperson of Indian National Congress. She is a regular columnist on politics.

Meera Devi is the Bureau Chief at Khabar Lahariya, focussing on training and special investigations. She has worked as a reporter in Bundelkhand for over 12 years.

Charu is the first female head of National Legal Cell of the Bhartiya Janta Partys youth wing. A law graduate from Government Law College, University of Mumbai in 2006, she runs free legal aid centres for women across India and has helped build a network of lawyers who provide free legal assistance to disadvantaged women. Charu also organises training workshops for Legal Cell members across India to help empower the youth on civic and legal issues.She is a Fellow of the Konrad Adenauer School for Young Politicians and founding member of the India-Israel Young Leaders Forum.

Grace Banu is a Dalit and transgender rights activist. A computer engineer, she is the first transgender person to be admitted to an engineering college in the state of Tamil Nadu. She is the founder of the Trans Rights Now Collective a Dalit Bahujan Adivasi centred collective of Trans people who are working across India to build trans leaders, support Trans education, and build trans job opportunity.

Abhay Xaxa is the National Convenor at National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights. He is an Adivasi Rights Activist, Senior Campaign Coordinator, Higher Education Campaigner and Social Anthropologist by training and has worked with grassroots organisations, campaigns, NGOs, media, research institutions in different capacities on the issue of Dalit Adivasi budget rights, bonded labour, migration, local self-governance and development induced displacement in central India.

Jothimani is a politician, writer, and social worker. A member of theIndian National Congress, she was elected to theLok SabhafromKarur,Tamil Naduin 2019. Before that, she was elected as the Union Councilor of Gudalur West Panchayat, Tamil Nadu at the age of 22. She has been instrumental in developing the villages under her Panchayat and ensured drinking water, electricity, roads, schools, PDS shops, libraries and rain water harvesting. Having joined politics at a young age, Jothimani served separate terms as the General Secretary and Vice President ofIndian Youth Congressand Tamil Nadu Youth Congress respectively.

Manuraj Shunmugasundaram is the National Media Spokesperson for the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam party. He is the Chair of the Steering Committee for Australia India Youth Dialogue. He is also a lawyer and practices at the Madras High Court. He is also a part of the Steering Committee for the School of Policy and Governance.

In the past, he has also served as a Policy Advisor to Members of Parliament. In November of 2010, Mr. Shunmugasundaram was selected as a Fellow of the Legislative Fellows Program, organized by the U.S. State Department, in 2010. He also participated in the European Union Visitor Program in 2013 as well as the Australia-India Youth Dialogue in 2014. He was a part of Project Interchange Indian delegation to visit Israel & Palestine in 2017.

Mr. Shunmugasundaram works to advance the cause of responsible politics, participatory governance, and evidence-based public policy. He is a regular contributor to The Hindu, Times of India, Indian Express, Huffington Post and The Print.

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Vasundhra is a fifth-year student at National Law University, Delhi. She is a core member of the research being conducted by Project 39A on issues of mental health of death row prisoners. As part of this, she has travelled across the country to meet and interview death row prisoners as well as their families.

She is also part of the core team at Parichay, which is a collaborative legal aid clinic spread across law schools in the country. It aims to assist those excluded from the NRC list in filing appeals. She has also founded a queer straight alliance on campus, which facilitates important conversations surrounding gender and sexuality. Part of being a law student, she believes, is a duty to use the law as an agent for progressive change in society, focusing especially on groups on the margins of society.

Talk to her about her dog and her favourite saxophonists.

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Shikha Mandi is a 26-year-old belonging to the Santhal tribe the third largest tribe in India. She is Indias first RJ who hosts an entire programme in Santhali. Her two-hour radio show Johar Jhargram on Radio Milan has become widely popular in the past year. It covers a wide range of local issues, including Adivasi culture, festivals, and the challenges faced by tribals.

Supriya Paul is the co-founder of Josh Talks, an impact media platform headquartered in Gurgaon, Haryana. Using the power of storytelling, Josh Talks is on a mission to create an ecosystem to help the youth go from where they are to where they want to be.

Josh Talks is proactively doing so by providing exposure to the youth by giving them access to role models and equipping them with skill sets so they can be empowered to take control of their lives. On 25th January 2019, Josh Talks was awarded the National Media Award by Honourable President of India, Shri Ram Nath Kovind and was named in a list of Top 50 Startups of India for 2017 by Economic Times.

Supriya is listed in the Forbes magazine Asia 30 Under 30 list for 2018 and received the SheThePeople Digital Women Award17 for Best Content Creation.

Dr Aditi Kaul is the Head of the Arts-Based Therapy Program with Fortis Healthcare under the National Mental Health Program. She is a grade 5 UNESCO and CID certified arts-based therapist who has run the programme pan Fortis for the last 7 years which includes working with persons diagnosed with Trauma, anxiety, depressive disorders, disorders of childhood, adolescents as well as stressors of day to day life using psychotherapeutic techniques including visual art, movement, writing and storytelling.

She has done over 500 preventive mental health workshops with schools colleges and NGOs across the city and has been teaching an Expressive Arts in clinical practice course for the last 6 years in collaboration with UNESCO and the Council of International Dance, amongst other short term courses.

Saurabh Dwivedi is a senior journalist with over 10 years of experience. Currently the Editor of The Lallantop, he has previously worked with Star News, Live India,Navbharat Times, Dainik Bhaskarand Aaj Tak.

The Lallantop is Indias leading digital first Hindi news media platform, with over 10 million subscribers on YouTube.

Mohammad Shams Aalam Shaikhis an international Para Swimmer. He won Bronze at the 2016 Can-Am Para Swimming Championships held in Gatineau, Quebec in the mens 100m Breaststroke SB4 category and also represented India at the2018 Asian Para Gamesin Jakarta, Indonesia. Shams currently holds the world record for longest open sea swimming by a paraplegic. He has received several accolades, including the Bihar Khel Ratna Award in 2018 and Jewel of Nation Award 2017

Shubham Gupta is an award-winning Mobile Journalist. He is the Head of Storytelling at People Like Us Create. Shubham has produced more than 2000 stories and his stories have also been shared by publications like Hindustan Times and Al Jazeera.

Tamseel Hussain is the Founder of People Like Us Create. He is a mobile storyteller & social media expert. With over a decade of experience, he has previously worked with organisations like Change.org, Oxfam, Greenpeace, civil society groups, media houses, tech-startups, and politicians. Tamseel helps build award-winning platforms, citizen-led campaigns, youth-focused public engagement, placemaking to building an ecosystem for community first storytelling in India, the middle east and Southeast Asian countries.

He also co-founded letmebreathe.in Indias largest pollution storytelling platform, it now has more than 300 storytellers from 11 Indian cities. They host 25 decision-makers via city-specific sessions and their partners include Twitter India and UN Environment amongst others.

Shubham Guptais an award-winning Mobile Journalist. He is the Head of Storytelling at People Like Us Create. Shubham has produced more than 2000 stories and his storieshave alsobeen shared by publications like Hindustan Times and Al Jazeera.

Mary Sebastian is a justice professional working for the elimination of violence against women and children with special focus on victims of sex trafficking in the State of Maharashtra. Mary briefly worked in the corporate law field before joining the development sector. She is currently working with a global anti-trafficking organization, International Justice Mission, where she assists law enforcement officials in the rescue of survivors of commercial sexual exploitation and provides legal representation through court proceedings. Mary supports systemic interventions and advocacy efforts on the survivor justice-related issues at the state government level and has organized a national level consultation on the arrest of demand for commercial sexual exploitation. She is currently undertaking a research study with the Maharashtra State Child Rights Protection Commission to analyse the functioning of childcare agencies under the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection) Act, 2015 in six districts in Maharashtra. Mary also works towards generating awareness and sensitivity on the issue of trafficking perspectives through thought leadership initiatives.

Shantanu currently leads the Venture team at Ashoka Innovators for the Public, South Asia. Responsible for identifying and engaging the worlds largest and most powerful network of Social Entrepreneurs, Shantanu has worked with hundreds of innovators to enable powerful ideas to reach a systems-level change. Shantanu was previously an IDEX Global Social Enterprise Fellow, where he subsequently also a representative on their board of advisors. Prior to his time at Ashoka, Shantanu has worked extensively in the fields of youth mental health in Australia, youth civic participation and youth participation in diplomacy for national and international organisations, such as the Asia-Europe Foundation. Shantanu has a keen interest in reading, writing and the opportunity to engage with new groups of people.

Vishak G Iyer, a 2011-Batch IAS officer, is currently the Special Secretary to the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh.Prior to this, he was the District Magistrate and Collector of Chitrakoot, Uttar Pradesh.

Hailing from Idukki, Kerala, Vishak has previously held the post of District Magistrate & Collector of Bhadohi, Hamirpur and Chief Development Officer of Meerut, and Varanasi.

An alumnus of MG University College of Engineering, Thodupuzha and a Chevening Fellow from Said Business School, University of Oxford, he has pursued B.Tech in Electronics & Communication Engineering and MA in Public Policy.

Vishak was instrumental in reviving the river Mandakini with community participation, during his stint as District Magistrate Chitrakoot. Chitrakoot district received National Water Awards-2019 under the category River rejuvenation for the effort.

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Samir Saran is the President of Observer Research Foundation (ORF), one of Asias most influential think tanks. Working with the Board, he provides strategic direction and leadership to ORFs multiple centres on fund raising, research projects, platform design and outreach initiatives including stakeholder engagement.

He curates the Raisina Dialogue, Indias annual flagship platform on geopolitics and geo-economics, and chairs CyFy, Indias annual conference on cyber security and internet governance.

Samir is also a Commissioner of The Global Commission on the Stability of Cyberspace, member of the South Asia advisory board of the World Economic Forum, and a part of its Global Future Council on Cybersecurity. Along with that, he is the Director of the Centre for Peace and Security at the Sardar Patel Police University, Jodhpur, India.

Samir writes frequently on issues of global governance, climate change, energy policy, global development architecture, artificial intelligence, cyber security, internet governance, and Indias foreign policy. He has authored four books, several academic papers, and is featured regularly in Indian and international print and broadcast media.

Virali Modi is a disability rights activist, motivational speaker, and model who has spearheaded a campaign around accessibility #MyTrainToo for accessible railways, which she started in 2017. Her petition on change.org has over 200k signatories.

She has been recognized by the BBC and was named as one of the most influential and inspirational women of 2017 by BBC 100 Women.

Virali was Miss Wheelchair India runner up 2014, has worked alongside Salman Khan for the Being Human Campaign, and has been the showstopper for Bombay Times Fashion Week, FBB, and Jewels Of India.

As a quintessential Bangalorean, the initial part of Vaidehis career involved paying her dues to the IT industry as a Software Engineer, both in India, and for a year, overseas. On returning from the United States, she waved farewell to her corporate job and took off to the mountains. She also volunteered as a teacher in an eco-school called SECMOL in Ladakh. Next stop, was Vietnam, where she volunteered yet again, as an English teacher in an NGO that rehabilitates tribals in the mountains of Sapa and also had a brief stint as a writer for Humans Of Bombay, and its sister page We The People. Wordplay has travelled with her throughout her journey, and she found that Twitter was a convenient medium to journal her thoughts and ideas. Vaidehi has over 5000 puns on her Twitter handle till date, and around 12.5K wordplay aficionados who follow her. It also landed her at her current job as the Social Media Content Lead at Dunzo a hyperlocal delivery app.

Ritu Jaiswal contested and won the election for the position of Mukhiya from Gram Panchayat Raj Singwahini in 2016 by a huge margin. Since then, she has completely transformed the village by establishing education centres, building toilets to tackle open defecation, installing solar lights and building water capacity and building roads. She continues to work with the residents and runs awareness campaigns around menstrual health, biogas management and vocational training. Ms Jaiswal was conferred with the Uchh Shikshit Adarsh Yuva Sarpanch (Mukhiya) Puraskaar 2016 at the 7th Bharatiya Chhatra Sansad by the Maharashtra Institute of Technology, and was among the 5 Mukhiyas selected to represent Bihar for the Capacity Building Program for Sarpanch & Panchayat Secretaries by The Ministry of Panchayati Raj, Government of India.

In March 2017, Ridhima filed a petition against the Government of India in the National Green Tribunal (NGT), asserting that the Indian government has failed to fulfil its duties towards the Indian people in mitigating climate change. In September, she joined Greta Thunberg at the Global Climate Strike in New York and also the International conference organized by Notre Affaire a Tous in Paris.

Along with fifteen teenagers from across the world, Ridhima has filed a complaint against five countries (Argentina, Turkey, Germany, France and Brazil) in the UN for not doing enough to address climate change.

Presently, she is spreading awareness in different cities of India to inspire others to protect the environment.

Aman is a class 11 student at Modern School, Vasant Vihar, N- Delhi. Inspired by his love for nature & the environment, 16-year-old Aman Sharma launched a petition on Change.org in May 2019 asking the government to declare a National climate emergency, which has reached 330,000 signatures now. It urges India to reach net zero-carbon emissions by 2030, stop all fossil-fuel expansion by 2020, stop deforestation for needless urban projects and provide its citizens the right to clean air and water.

Aman represented India at the first-ever youth and climate summit at Oslo Pax, Norway by the Nobel Peace Prize Center in September 2019 and his petition was later presented at the UN youth and climate summit in New York as a part of All in for Climate Action campaign which has 1.6 million signatures and 90 countries as part of it. He is a part of and striker with Fridays for Future India and avid birdwatcher, conservationist and wildlife photographer.

Ashok Malik is the former Press Secretary for the President of India. He began his career in the Telegraph newspaper in Kolkata in 1991 and subsequently worked for many leading publications, including The Times of India, India Today and Indian Express. In 2006, he embarked on a career as a self-employed columnist, serving at different points as a consulting editor to the Pioneer and Tehelka. In 2015 he joined the Observer Research Foundation. He has been appointed to the Board of Governors of the Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs, a think-tank focused on corporate social responsibility. He is a Member of the Rajghat Memorial Committee, which oversees the Memorial dedicated to Mahatma Gandhi. In 2016, he was awarded the Padma Shri, Indias fourth-highest civilian honour.

Karnika Kohli is the audience editor at Scroll.in. She was previously with TheWire.in, where she led the social media desk, worked on campaigns to raise funding and was part of the team that organised events. Her main focus is on amplifying the reach of Scroll.ins work and building an engaged audience by bringing data, insights and strategies to the newsroom. She has also worked with the Times of India and NewsX.

Neha Arora is the founder of Planet Abled, which provides accessible travel solutions and leisure excursions for people with various disabilities and the elderly. Planet Abled was awarded as one of the best innovative practices by Zero Project Conference at United Nations Vienna. Planet Abled has also been the recipient of India Responsible Tourism Award by Outlook Traveler and World Travel Market, London Best Innovation in Travel & Overall Winner and NCPEDP Mphasis Universal Design Award. This year, Planet Abled was also the recipient of the National Award for the most unique and innovative tourism product by the Ministry of Tourism Government of India.

Planet Abled has also represented India as a major accessible travel destination on global platform like ITB Berlin, Global Sustainable Tourism Council Conference in Thailand and International Congress on Tourism and Technology in Diversity in Malaga, Spain.

Neha is a Global Good Fund Fellow and India Inclusion fellow and a graduate of Nasdaq Entrepreneurial centre MMI program, for her work at Planet Abled. Neha also conducts sessions and workshops in corporates, universities, incubators and various forums for amalgamation of people with disabilities in mainstream via the medium of travel.

Mir is an officer of the 2011 batch of the Indian Administrative Service (IAS), serving in the state of Kerala.

He was posted as District Collector of Kannur in August 2016. As District Collector, he was the prime mover behind the transformation of Kannur into Indias first plastic/disposable-free district.

His most recent initiative is a timely project titled Satyameva Jayate (Truth Alone Triumphs) that trains teachers and students to identify, vet and respond to misinformation and fake news online. The programme was implemented in over 200 schools in Kannur, covering over 80,000 children making it the first of its kind in the country. His work was widely covered by the national media in India and international networks in Britain, China & Japan.

Under his leadership, Kannur received five Kerala e-Governance Awards, including best e-Governed district from the Chief Minister of Kerala in January 2019.

He has led large projects that have singularly focused on creating value and convenience for citizens. The core driving force of his work has been efficiently bringing together stakeholders from the government, private sector and members of society, in the interest of achieving important social goals.

After a successful three year stint as Kannur Collector, he recently took charge as Director, Kerala State Suchitwa Mission that oversees the implementation of waste management schemes across the state

Malini has 15 years of experience across3 industries IT, media and travel. She is a voice-over artist and the Founder/CEO of F5 Escapes, an experiential travel company, with a vision to redefine the way women travel India. She is not only passionate about working towards and promoting India as a safe destination for women but also a firm believer in sustainable living and travel. She believes in the power of peer learning and hence loves motivating women returning to the workplace and early-stage entrepreneurs.

Gulesh studied till ninth grade and was married off at 17. She was content being a homemaker until one day when in 2003 her husband was killed in an accident and it became absolutely necessary for her to become financially independent. She started with doing a few odd jobs like cooking at peoples houses, selling vegetables, frying pakoras at a roadside stall, etc., but it wasnt sustainable. About 3-4 years ago, she started her journey as an Uber driver. Today, she is financially independent and supporting her sons education.

Abhinav Agrawal, 27, an ethnomusicologist, musician and social entrepreneur is also the Founder Director of the Non-Profit Organisation, Anahad Foundation. Abhinav is working towards creating and reviving the diminishing folk music industry in India by creating self-reliant models that generate livelihoods, pride and dignity for stakeholders connected to this art form.

He is generating demand and value for cultural folk music through building respect, recognition, identity and self-confidence of folk musicians, and in parallel creating a self-sustainable economic environment where an artist can distribute their productions directly to the public without an intermediary. In doing so, Abhinav is helping create a Folk Music industry that is a sustainable art form and an industry that is musician-led.

Abhinav is also an Ashoka Fellow, and has been featured under Forbes 30 under 30 Asia list. He has also been awarded with the Karamveer Award.

Anshul is a social entrepreneur and a young media influencer, who founded Youth Ki Awaaz (YKA), Indiaslargest social justice media platform for young people to address and engage on critical issues, at the age of17.

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Neuroscience, Barbecue, And A Vibrant Indian Diaspora: My Time In Kansas City - Youth Ki Awaaz