Jury Panel

Ambassador Ajai Malhotra holds an M.A. in Economics from the Delhi School of Economics. He joined the Indian Foreign Service in 1977 and worked at the Ministry of External Affairs, New Delhi, and Indian missions in Bucharest, Geneva, Kuwait, Moscow, Nairobi, New York, and Washington DC. He retired as Ambassador of India to the Russian Federation, after thirty-seven years of distinguished service. Since 2014, he is Distinguished Fellow & Senior Adviser (Climate Change), TERI. He is also currently Chairperson of the UN Human Rights Council Advisory Committee, Geneva; Chairman & Managing Trustee of CHIKITSA and SHIKSHA – NGO’s providing free primary healthcare and education & vocational training respectively.

Mr Anshuman is engaged with the Water Resources Division of The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) as its Director. With 25 years of experience working in the water sector, Mr Anshuman’s expertise spans across areas such as integrated water resource management, water use efficiency, and water quality & quantity assessment. At TERI, he is involved in integrated water resources management (IWRM); water use efficiency; urban water supply & demand management studies; water audits; water conservation; watershed management; climate change and water security; provision of drinking water; resource evaluation and pollution load assessment; adequacy & efficiency studies of sewage & effluent treatment plants; regulatory legislations; and environmental impact assessment (EIA) studies.

Mrs. Debashree Mukherjee, IAS officer AGMUT 1991 batch and is presently posted as Joint Secretary, Prime Minister’s Office. She has been appointed as Additional Secretary, Department of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation, Ministry of Jal Shakti, Government of India. She has expertise in the areas related to water, sanitation, and environmental management. She was the Chairperson and Managing Director at Delhi Transport Corporation. She has also served as Chief Executive Officer to Delhi Jal Board.

Dr. Swati has over 12 years of experience in climate change policies, ecosystem-based adaptation, disaster risk reduction, and traditional water management systems. She has worked at the grassroots level on numerous climate change adaptation projects, such as water management in the Himalayan, coastal, and tribal regions of eastern and central India. She is a strong advocate for indigenous wisdom and firmly believes that preserving traditional knowledge supported by scientific know-how can help address climate challenges. She is an alumnus of the United Nations University-Institute of Advances Studies Young Researchers' School (Japan) and the Indian Institute of Forest Management (Bhopal, India).

Yugal Joshi Program Director for Water & Land Resources, in NITI Aayog. He has previously served as Director, Jal Jeevan Mission and Director Swachh Bharat Mission in the Jal Shakti Ministry from July 2016 to February 2022. He is the recipient of the Prime Minister's Award for Excellence in Public Administration for his work in Swachh Bharat Mission and also of the Indian Police Medal for Meritorious Service as Director Jal Jeevan Mission. He has also translated Phnom Penh Water Story from English to Hindi. He has published various papers in international journals on water and related areas. An alumnus of Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, NUS, Singapore; IIT Delhi, Delhi University, HBTU Kanpur and Kumaon University, he is deeply interested in history, mythology and yoga.

Liby Johnson is the executive director of Gram Vikas, Odisha. He is a development management specialist with more than 22 years of experience at grassroots and policy level, working in both the government and non-government sectors. He has a Post Graduate Diploma in Rural Management from the Institute of Rural Management, Anand, Gujarat. Liby coordinated Gram Vikas’ relief, rehabilitation, and reconstruction activities after the 1999 Odisha super cyclone, and post-Indian Ocean tsunami reconstruction efforts taken up by SIFFS, a fisher people’s collective in Kerala and Tamil Nadu.

Dr. Sarkar is Distinguished Fellow and Senior Director for the Natural Resources and Climate Programme at TERI. He is also Director, Water Resources Division, TERI since September 2014. He has a Doctorate in Economics (1991) from the State University of New York, Stony Brook. Dr. Sarkar is a retired IAS officer, former Secretary to the Government of India in the Ministry of Water Resources during 2013, in the Department of Personnel and Training during 2013-14 & 2007-2013, and Ministry of Finance (in Department of Economic Affairs) during 1994-97.