About Us

Our Objective

The Bengaluru Sustainability Forum, BSF in short, is an inter-institutional collaborative initiative that aims to address issues relating to long-term sustainability of urban and peri-urban landscapes. Bengaluru Sustainability Forum focuses on public goods and urban commons – including water, air and soil – amongst others.

The main objective of the Bengaluru Sustainability Forum is to convene and disseminate knowledge on various aspects of sustainability in the urban landscape, with a focus on Bengaluru. The Forum aims to achieve this by encouraging conversation and collaboration across a broad range of stakeholders.

One of the approaches the Forum takes in facilitating exchange of knowledge is to host invitation based retreats on specific aspects of urban sustainability. These retreats are a platform to listen and learn about various perspectives and approaches from people of different educational and professional backgrounds on a defined topic in an informal setting. To know more about the retreats, please click here.

While BSF is not a ‘funding agency’, we offer a small grants program which provides seed support for local, innovative projects which can bridge the gap between research and on-ground action. To know more about the Small Grants program, please click here.

In recent years, BSF is also taking conversations on sustainability to the larger public through various mediums like a film festival, podcast, exhibitions, workshops etc. You can read more about these here.

Steering Committee Members

Jahnavi Phalkey

A filmmaker and historian of science and technology by training, Jahnavi Phalkey is the Founding Director of Science Gallery Bengaluru. Jahnavi has authored Atomic State: Big Science in Twentieth Century India and is director of the documentary film Cyclotron.

Jagdish Krishnaswamy

Jagdish Krishnaswamy has a B.Tech in Civil Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Powai, Mumbai and a Master’s degree in Statistics and Decision Sciences and a PhD in Environmental science, both from Duke University, North Carolina, USA.

He is a field ecohydrologist and a landscape ecologist with research and teaching interests in applied statistics, environmental applications of remote sensing and GIS, ecosystem services, ecological restoration, river ecology and climate change. He loves the challenge of understanding complex changes in the environment over time and space. He was the Coordinating Lead Author of the Special IPCC Report on Climate Change and Land.

He is the Dean, School of Environment and Sustainability at the Indian Institute for Human Settlements, Bengaluru. He is leading the effort to develop India’s first Long-term Urban Ecological Observatory.

Mahesh Sankaran

Mahesh Sankaran is an ecologist whose research interests lie in understanding the impacts of global climatic changes on the structure, functioning and stability of ecosystems.

L.S Shashidhara

Prof Shashidhara specializes in Genetics, Molecular Biology and Evolutionary biology.

Prof. Shashidhara is currently the Director of NCBS. He is one of the founding academic members of IISER Pune and Ashoka University, contributing to their growth. In addition, Prof Shashidhara has contributed to establish the Indian Cancer Genome Atlas, a national consortium to promote collaborative cancer research (https://www.icga.in/) and the Pune Knowledge Cluster, a consortium to promote multi-disciplinary collaborative work to address problems of health, water, environment and sustainable mobility (https://www.pkc.org.in/).

He has also been very involved in the promotion of science and science education, and has had many experiments in this area, including working with the Ministry of Education on training of high school and undergraduate teachers in adopting inquiry-based teaching methods. Beyond conventional education and research, he has organized several career workshops for scientists in science journalism, science policy, climate education, administration, and management. He is an active and founder member of IndiaBioscience dedicated to strengthening the Life Science research community in India. He is also steering an international project on Climate Change Education and has initiated various global programs on sustainability, biodiversity and zoonotic diseases in his capacity as President of the International Union of Biological Sciences (IUBS).

Since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, Prof Shashidhara has been working very actively at various fronts to help mitigate the impact of the pandemic in Pune city and across India, which include epidemiological data collection and analysis; serosurvey; indigenization of reagents for RT-PCR kits; genome surveillance, longitudinal studies on immune response to vaccination etc.

P. S. Narayan

P.S.Narayan is the Head of Sustainability at Wipro Ltd and the Managing Trustee and Head of Wipro Foundation, the CSR arm of Wipro Ltd.

A graduate in Electrical Engineering with a post-graduation in Management, Narayan has more than twenty five years of cross-functional experience. He has led Wipro’s Sustainability initiatives since its inception in 2008. He is also involved in sustainability advocacy through several business and civil society platforms . He is currently the Chairman of the CII Greenco forum for Bangalore. Narayan is also Visiting Faculty at Azim Premji University and Xavier University, Bhubaneswar where he teaches post-graduate classes in ecology and sustainable development.

Satyajit Mayor

Prof. Satyajit Mayor is an Indian biologist.

Prof. Mayor is an M.Sc. in Chemistry from IIT Bombay, who later obtained his Ph.D. in Life Sciences from Rockefeller University, New York. He has worked in the Department of Pathology at Columbia University and has taught at the Woods Hole Microscopy Course.

Seema Mundoli

Seema Mundoli is a faculty at Azim Premji University. Her research focuses on the role of nature in Indian cities in addressing the challenges of environmental sustainability and social justice.

Her recent co-authored books (with Harini Nagendra) include, “Cities and Canopies: Trees in Indian Cities” (Penguin India) and “So many leaves” (Pratham Books)

Tejal Kanitkar

Tejal is an Associate Professor in the School of Natural Sciences and Engineering at the National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bengaluru.

She has worked in the area of Energy and Climate Change for the last 15 years. She has a B.Tech in Mechanical Engineering from Mumbai University, A Master’s in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and a Ph.D. from the Department of Energy Science and Engineering, IIT-Bombay. Her work covers the broad areas of energy and emissions modelling, climate policy, and energy policy.

S Vishwanath

Vishwanath is a Civil Engineer and an Urban Planner. He is a Trustee with the Biome Environmental Trust (www.biometrust.org).

A graduate in Electrical Engineering with a post-graduation in Management, Narayan has more than twenty five years of cross-functional experience. He has led Wipro’s Sustainability initiatives since its inception in 2008. He is also involved in sustainability advocacy through several business and civil society platforms . He is currently the Chairman of the CII Greenco forum for Bangalore. Narayan is also Visiting Faculty at Azim Premji University and Xavier University, Bhubaneswar where he teaches post-graduate classes in ecology and sustainable development. He has 32 years of experience in the water, waste-water and sanitation sector helping design rainwater harvesting, aquifer recharge, wastewater recycling and ecosan systems. He is an Adjunct Professor and teaches a course on Water at the Azim Premji University, Bengaluru, India. He writes a weekly column called Waterwise for the last 11 years and more in a national newspaper-The Hindu.

Uma Ramakrishnan

Uma Ramakrishnan is an associate professor at NCBS interested in molecular ecology and conservation genetics.

Her work involves using genetic and genomic data to make inferences about populations of endangered species, and suggest measures to avoid extinction. She also investigates the ecological and evolutionary contexts of emerging infectious disease. She is passionate about science communication and science capacity building.

Coordinators

Manasi Pingle

Manasi Pingle is a filmmaker by training.

After graduating from the Xaviers Institute of Communications, she worked in the television and film industry in Mumbai. She has directed and produced 2 documentaries on work done by peoples’ movements. As a part of BSF she looks forward to working towards just, equitable and sustainable urban development.

Namrata Narendra

Namrata is an architect and researcher from Bangalore.

Her practice explored ways to activate and improve the built environment alongside underserved communities. Her research revolves around water, infrastructure and urban socio-spatial governance. Namrata is a runner and avid cyclist, exploring cities by foot and pedal. At BSF, she hopes to advocate for sustainable practices in urban planning and development.

Social Media and Communications

Mukund Krishna Kumar

Mukund Krishna Kumar is a communications professional with a background in development studies.

His interests include people-facing research, governance and urban sustainability. At BSF, he hopes to bridge the gap between sustainability solutions and the individuals they impact, creating a more inclusive and equitable future.

Content Contribution: Vrushal Pendharkar
Illustrations: Sunaina Coelho, Babakiki