Abhishek was pursuing his Masters in Water Policy and Governance from TISS, Mumbai. At Forum, he was documenting the local conflicts in the Mahanadi basin, which often gets missed in the mainstream media. Based on his preliminary work, he studied in detail the emerging conflict over the Kharun Riverfront Development Project. His work discusses how motives of the actors play in this conflict, and on the basis of shared interests of conflicting parties what is the possible space for dialogue in this conflict. He also contributed with articles on these works for the Mahanadi newsletter. Water conflicts, hydropolitics and political ecology are his research interests.
Outputs: Exploring Motives: Unfolding the conflict over Kharun Riverfront Development
Amelie Huber
June 2014 to June 2015
Amelie Huber has been carrying out research on conflicts over water and development in Northeast India. Drawing on case studies from Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh and Assam, her work focuses on processes of depoliticisation and knowledge construction related to hydropower dams and climate-related hazards and risks; identity politics in water conflicts; and the ways in which different actors interact over and shape environmental governance and development paradigms. Amelie is a PhD fellow with the European Network of Political Ecology (ENTITLE), and is based at the Institute for Environmental Science and Technology in Barcelona and at Boğazici University, Istanbul. She holds an MSc degree in Land and Water Management from Wageningen University and a BA in Development Studies and South Asian Studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London. Outside India, Amelie is at home in the German Alps and in Sicily.
Research Interests: Dams and development, water conflicts, resource grabbing, social movements, political ecology, critical development studies
Anuj Goyal
May to July, 2014
Anuj Goyal has completed his post graduation with an MA degree in Development, prior to which he completed his B. Tech. He has 2 years of experience working in the IT sector and 4 Months in Governance and Natural Resources Management. During his internship with the Forum, Anuj worked on mapping of water conflicts in the Mahanadi Basin in Chhattisgarh, disparities in water allocations, the role of power industries in the genesis of conflicts, and the new barrages on the Mahanadi being built for industrial use.
Research Interests: Environmental Governance, Environmental Policy, Common Property Resources
Outputs:
Seven New Barrages: Giving birth to many conflicts
Jayanthi has several years of experience in technology, environment and development related themes in both academic and professional engagements. Her academic research focuses on the relationship between technology, society, and science. Since 2008, political and normative issues related to technologies have been central in her research. She has been looking at these in a variety of domains: nanotechnologies, hydraulic technologies, wildlife conservation science and urban planning in India. Her current research, relates to techno-politics and issues of vulnerability in a hydraulic technology in India. By drawing upon the theoretical approaches of science technology studies (STS) and political ecology, and hazard studies, her research explores the conflict on Mullaperiyar Dam in India. By taking technological culture as a framework, her project tries to explore the notions of vulnerability attached to the dam. The intention is to identify the forces, interests and ideologies that constitute vulnerability.
Outputs:
Draft - Hydropolitical vulnerability of the Mullaperiyar dam: Institutions involved and options explored
Joas Platteeuw
June to September 2015
Joas, 22, obtained a bachelor’s degree in Public Administration after having studied at Tilburg University and the University of North Georgia. Currently, he is pursuing M.Sc. in International Development Studies at the University of Amsterdam (UvA), The Netherlands. For his thesis he is looking into civil society resistance against hydropower in the Darjeeling region, West Bengal, from both an anti-political framework and eco-governmental perspective, as well trying to understand the possibilities for strengthening the civil society body concerned with hydropower resistance in the region
Paroma Wagle
June to July 2014
Paroma completed Erasmus Mundus funded Master of Science in Environmental Sciences, Policy and Management awarded by Central European University in Hungary, Lund University in Sweden, Manchester University in United Kingdom and Aegean University in Greece (2013). After her graduation Paroma worked with the Forum as an intern writing a short analytic paper by drawing insights from the literature developed by the Forum. The paper discusses: (a) factors affecting possibilities of resolution of water conflicts, (b) measures adopted to ameliorate conflicts, involving reduction in costs and/ or enhancing benefits of interventions involved, (c) lessons related to the factors and conditions that would facilitate stakeholders’ dialogue for resolution of water conflicts. She is currently pursuing the MRes Social Science Research Methods (International Development) Program at the University of East Anglia, UK. The focus of her research is on the institutional structures facilitating collaborative or deliberative processes for water conflict resolution.
Research Interests: Environmental conflicts, Water policy, Deliberative processes
Outputs:
Draft – Resolving water conflicts: A Review Paper
Prerna Prasad
April to June 2015
Prerna Prasad is pursuing her Masters in Water Policy and Governance from TISS, Mumbai. As part of her internship with the Forum, she worked to collect the baseline data for the E-Flows theme work. She is currently trying to study the failure of Rural Drinking Water and Sanitation Schemes in Jharkhand and plans to develop an integrated perspective to look at the issue.
Rahul Raja is currently pursuing his Masters in Water Policy and Governance from Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. Prior to joining TISS, he completed his bachelors in business administration from Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University in Delhi, and has worked for 2 years in the banking sector. However, his long term interests in sustainable ecosystems and livelihoods led him to leave his job and pursue further studies. During his internship at the Forum, Rahul along with fellow intern Simran, worked on the issue of rising conflicts due to increasing reallocation from the Surya Irrigation Project in Palghar district of Maharashtra. The study aimed to bring together a multi-stakeholder perspective regarding the increasing reallocation from irrigation purposes to non-irrigational uses.
Research Interests: Sanitation and its health and economic impacts, sustainability of ecosystems and livelihoods, water conflicts, waste management and water pollution, caste and gender intersectionality in water access.
Output: Surya Irrigation Project - Status Report
Ramya Swayamprakash
June-August 2015
Ramya Swayamprakash is currently pursuing Masters in Urban Design at Lawrence Technological University, Southfield MI. As an intern (June- August 2015) with the Forum, she worked on the Mahanadi River Basin Analysis report, copy-editing and doing some graphics work. In other lives, Ramya has been a journalist with Mid-Day in Mumbai and continues to write for periodicals and website. She is trained in Political Science; Science Policy Studies; Environmental Law and (now Urban Design) apart from journalism. She enjoys learning more about rivers, fish and their lives as well as travel and photography.
Seema Ravandale
April-June, 2016
Seema has field expereince in working closely with communities in Bundelkhand, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand on watershed development, comprehensive village level development models, livelihood etc. She holds a master degree in “Technology and Development” from CTARA, IIT Bombay. While interning with Forum, she was mainly looking at the water quality sampling and analysis in the Hasdeo sub-basin.
Outputs: Water quality assessment in the Hasdeo sub-basin during pre-monsoon period, 2016
Sepideh Noohi
July- August, 2018
Sepideh Noohi will be studying the conflicting issue over allocation of water from the Susri river for agricultural and urban use. Sepideh is a third year undergraduate student at the University of East Anglia in UK, studying International Development with Politics and Overseas Experience. She is particularly interested in water conflicts (specifically socio-political and socio-economic consequences of dams as a method of water management) environmental politics and policy-making, and solutions to achieve sustainable and multi-faceted development.
Simran Sumbre
April-May, 2018
Simran Sumbre is a student of Masters in Water Policy and Governance from Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. She is a Political Science graduate from Ramnarain Ruia College, Mumbai University. Her interest in public policy and advocacy inspired her to pursue her masters in policy and governance in the water sector. During her internship at the Forum, along with her fellow colleague Rahul, Simran worked on the issue of rising conflicts due to increasing reallocation from the Surya Irrigation Project in Palghar district of Maharashtra. The study aimed to bring together a multi-stakeholder perspective regarding the increasing reallocation from irrigation purposes to non-irrigational uses.
Research interests: Water Conflicts, Rights and access to water, water citizenship, sanitation. Outputs: Surya Irrigation Project- Status Report
Sridhar A.
June to July 2014
Sridhar is a postgraduate in Water Policy and Governance from Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai. Prior to getting his degree, he had completed his B-Tech in Applied Electronics and Instrumentation from Mahatma Gandhi University, Kerala and had worked in the IT sector for about 7 years. During his internship in 2014 with the Forum he worked on environmental flows in the Chhattisgarh part of the Mahanadi basin, especially the Hasdeo basin, a tributary of the Mahanadi and also tried to understand the ecosystem-Livelihood linkages.
Research Interests: Environment, common pool resources, ecosystem and livelihoods, biodiversity, conservation and technology in development, water-energy nexus
