Vandana Shiva is an Indian scholar, environmental activist and anti-globalization author. She is one of the leaders and board members of the International Forum on Globalization and a figure of the global solidarity movement known as the alter-globalization movement. She is a member of the scientific committee of the Fundacion IDEAS, Spain's Socialist Party's think tank, and a member of the International Organization for a Participatory Society. Shiva has served as an adviser to governments in India and abroad as well as non-governmental organizations, including the International Forum on Globalization, the Women's Environment & Development Organization and the Third World Network. Shiva chairs the Commission on the Future of Food set up by the Region of Tuscany in Italy. She is a member of the Steering Committee of the Indian People's Campaign Against the World Trade Organization (WTO). She is a councilor of the World Future Council. Shiva serves on Government of India Committees on Organic Farming. Vandana Shiva has spent much of her life in the defence and celebration of biodiversity and indigenous knowledge. She has argued for the wisdom of many traditional practices, such as those included in India's Vedic heritage. She has worked to promote biodiversity in agriculture to increase productivity, nutrition, farmer's incomes, for which she was recognised as an 'Environmental Hero' by Time magazine in 2003. She received the Right Livelihood Award in 1993. Her work on agriculture started in 1984 after the violence in Punjab and the gas leak in Bhopal from Union Carbide's pesticide manufacturing plant. Her studies for the UN University led to the publication of her book The Violence of the Green Revolution. Shiva argues that the seed-chemical package promoted by Green Revolution agriculture has depleted fertile soil, destroyed living ecosystems, and negatively impacted people’s health.

Vandana Shiva