Dr. Sunita Narain is Director General of the Centre for Science and Environment, Director of the Society for Environmental Communications, as well as publisher of the fortnightly magazine, Down To Earth.
In 2005 she was awarded the Padma Shri Award, the fourth-highest civilian award in the Republic of India, by the Indian government. She has also received the World Water Prize for work on rainwater harvesting and in building paradigms for community-based water management. In 2005, she also chaired the Tiger Task Force at the direction of the Prime Minister, to evolve an action plan for conservation in the country after the loss of tigers in Sariska. She advocated to build a coexistence agenda with local communities so that the benefits of conservation would be shared. She is a member of the Prime Minister’s Council for Climate Change as well as the National Ganga River Basin Authority, chaired by the Prime Minister, set up to implement strategies for cleaning the river.