Vandana Shiva Biography 
Vandana Shiva is an Indian environmental activist and a philosopher. She has written over 20 books and 500 papers in scientific and technical journals. She is one of the board members of the International Forum on Globalization and member of the Alter-globalization movement and scientific committee of the Fundacion IDEAS. She received Right Livelihood Award in 1993.
She was born on 5th November 1952 in Dehradun in Uttarkand district. Her parents had a love for nature and were conservators of forests. She studied at St. Mary’s School in Nainital and continued at the Convent of Jesus and Mary at Dehradun. She received her Bachelor of Science degree in physics and continued Master of Arts degree in philosophy of science at the University of Guelph in Canada. She received her Ph.D at the University of Western Ontario. Her thesis was about ‘Hidden Variables and locality in Quantum Theory’. She continued her scientific research at the Indian Institute of Science and Indian Institute of Management in Bangalore.
She fought for changes to be made in agriculture and food production. She contributed to the fields of intellectual property rights, biodiversity, biotechnology, bioethics and genetic engineering. She conducted many campaigns all over the world against genetic engineering. In 1982 she founded the Science, Technology and Ecology research foundation. Later she created Navdanya in 1991 to protect the diversity and integrity of living resources.
She contributed to the conservation of more than 2000 rice varieties and established 34 seed banks in 13 states through Navdanya. This organization has more than 70,000 farmers as its members. With the collaboration of Schumacher College at U. K., she started an international college for sustainable living in Doon Valley. She wrote a book ‘Staying Alive’ in 1988 to redefine the perception of women in underdeveloped countries.
She has a major role in the Global Ecofeminist Movement. She served as an adviser to the Government of India. She is a member of the Government of India committee on organic farming. She was called as an environmental hero in 2003 by Time Magazine.
Published: N/A
Updated: September 26, 2017
