People – The Climate Agenda

Board of Trustees

Vineeta Singh

Vineeta Singh

Vineeta Singh is the Chief Trustee of The Climate Agenda. By profession, she is a Librarian and Educator at Mirza Ahsanullah Beg Girls P. G. College, Azamgarh, a role that reflects her deep and lifelong love for books, learning, and knowledge. She finds particular joy in staying connected with young people and students, drawing energy from their curiosity and their capacity for change.

She is passionate about leading institutions with a strong foundation of discipline, devotion, and dedication, values she brings to her role in guiding The Climate Agenda's vision and institutional growth. Her commitment to nurturing young minds aligns naturally with TCA's belief that lasting climate action depends on empowering the next generation to lead with knowledge and purpose.

Avantika Srivastava

Avantika Srivastava

Avantika Srivastava is the Founder Trustee of The Climate Agenda and a social work professional with over 18 years of experience in gender justice, women's human rights, and rights-based development. Her work has been shaped by a consistent commitment to these fields, built through sustained professional education, research, and field engagement across the years.

At the core of Avantika's practice lies her specialisation in designing and facilitating capacity-building programmes. This has involved developing curricula and learning resources that translate rights-based principles into structured, accessible learning, enabling her to strengthen the capacities of civil society organisations, government institutions, and community-based organisations alike.

Avantika's thematic focus spans women's human rights, gender-based discrimination and violence, child rights, gender diversity and inclusion, and participatory learning. Together, these areas reflect the breadth of her engagement, addressing both the immediate realities of discrimination and violence and the broader structures of inclusion and diversity that shape gender justice work.

Through this combination of professional education, research, and field engagement, Avantika continues to work toward gender equality, social justice, and inclusive development, bringing the same rigour and consistency to her role as Founder Trustee of The Climate Agenda that has defined her career across the past 18 years.

Avaneesh

Avaneesh

Avaneesh Kumar is a full-time Rural Enterprise Strategist working at the intersection of rural entrepreneurship, market development, research, and strategic communication. His mission is to help rural entrepreneurs move beyond production to profitable markets, developing practical strategies for branding, value addition, product positioning, market access, and enterprise growth. He believes that sustainable rural development is created not merely by increasing production, but by building systems that connect producers with opportunities.

At The Climate Agenda, this belief finds a natural home, where building resilient systems, not just delivering interventions, is central to how communities are supported through the climate transition.

Steering Committee Members - 100% UP Coalition

Sangeeta Kushwaha

Founder, Saras Foundation

Hemant Nandan Ojha

Secretary, Gyan Vigyan Samiti

Manoj Kumar

Chief Executive Officer, Jan Vikas Kendra

Rajdev Chaturvedi

Head, Gramin Punarnirman Sansathan

Virendra Kumar Rai

Secretary, Centre for Environment & Rural Technology

Operations Team

Ekta Singh

Director of Programs

Ekta Singh

Director of Programs

Ekta Singh is the co-founder and Director of Programs at The Climate Agenda (TCA), bringing over 23 years of experience across the development and climate sectors to her work spanning Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, and Madhya Pradesh. Balancing her roles as a mother, wife, and organisational leader, Ekta has built a career defined by an ability to move fluidly between grassroots mobilisation and high-level policy influence, using creative strategy to shift how regional media and political establishments engage with environmental and public health issues.

Ekta's path to climate work began with five years dedicated to sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), where she worked as an advocate for women's reproductive health. This was followed by another five years focused on the traditional, fossil-fuel-based methods of energy production and the socio-environmental and economic devastation they caused, particularly their compounding effects on public health. During this period, she became an outspoken and active voice on the issue, building, organising, and contributing to public-led campaigns that pushed the conversation forward.

Drawing on this decade of grounded, cross-sectoral experience, Ekta co-founded The Climate Agenda, channelling her expertise in reproductive health, energy justice, and public health advocacy into a single, unified vision for the organisation. Since TCA's inception, she has been instrumental to its effective functioning, forming and sustaining a CSO network that has built a clean air movement led by local communities across 40 cities in the region, including 16 non-attainment cities in Uttar Pradesh. Her efforts have anchored fruitful partnerships with over 300 civil society organisations, ensuring sustained, heightened attention to the region's degrading air quality and its associated health consequences.

Holding a postgraduate degree in Political Science, Ekta has spent her career at the confluence of environment, human rights, and public health. Her unwavering spirit continues to drive TCA's team forward, anchored in her belief that access to clean environment is not negotiable but a right owed to everyone.

Ravi Shekhar

Program Strategist

Ravi Shekhar

Program Strategist

Ravi Shekhar has spent nearly two decades at the intersection of human rights activism, environmental justice, and equitable energy transition. His work is grounded in a simple conviction, carried from grassroots movements into organisational leadership: that climate solutions are only meaningful when they are built by, and for, the communities who bear the sharpest edge of environmental harm.

Ravi's journey began eight years before The Climate Agenda existed, in the thick of grassroots organising with Human Rights Movements, Forest Rights Movements, and Tribal and Peasant Unity efforts. This period shaped his instinct for bottom-up organising and gave him a first-hand understanding of how fossil fuel-based energy production devastates the lives of tribal communities, peasants, women, and other vulnerable groups, an understanding that would later become foundational to his climate work.

For the past ten years, as Co-Founder of The Climate Agenda (TCA), Ravi has carried that grounding into the climate space, placing sustainable energy consumption and equitable energy production at the heart of the organisation's work. His bottom-up approach shapes TCA's climate strategies, designed not only to mitigate environmental harm but to actively empower those who experience its worst consequences.

Across both chapters of his career, spanning human rights movements and climate justice work, Ravi has collaborated with national and international organisations and mentored emerging climate groups, helping shape TCA into a recognised player in the regional climate movement. He continues to contribute to the team in setting ambitious goals, staying true to the belief that runs through his entire career: that lasting change starts with the people most affected by the problem it seeks to solve.

Saniya Anwar

Project Lead

Saniya Anwar

Project Lead

Saniya Anwar is a climate and sustainability practitioner working at the intersection of clean air, clean energy, urban mobility, and social equity. With over ten years of experience across Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, she has built a practice rooted in coalition building, policy advocacy, strategic communications, and community-led climate action - consistently working to advance equitable, people-centered climate solutions.

Saniya currently serves as Project Lead at The Climate Agenda, where she leads work on urban mobility, climate justice, the heat stress crisis, gender-inclusive climate governance, and community-based participatory research across Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. She also facilitates the Sustainable Urban Mobility Collective (SUMC), a multi-stakeholder platform advancing sustainable mobility solutions across the region, and leads the Secretariat of the 100% Uttar Pradesh Coalition.

Prior to these roles, Saniya served as Lead Campaigner on the Buniyaad Initiative, supporting a just transition in the brick kiln sector. She also contributed to rooftop solar adoption and policy reform under Suraj se Samriddh UP, and worked on air pollution mitigation in the state - experience that gave her a grounded understanding of how on-the-ground realities and policy processes must inform one another.

Saniya holds an MPhil from the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Ten years of working alongside communities, coalitions, and policymakers have convinced her that clean air is not a privilege but a right - and that climate action is only meaningful when those most affected have a voice in shaping it.

Ashutosh Srivastava

Account Officer

Ashutosh Srivastava

Account Officer

Ashutosh Sriastava joined The Climate Agenda as the Accounts Officer in 2017. Began heading Finance, Accounts and Quality Cell at The Climate Agenda. His work involves developing project implementation techniques to ensure maximizing impact while minimizing costs. Inaddition to being the Accounts Officer at Climate Agenda.

A Bachelor of Commerce by education also PG Diploma in Computer Application ALMA Computing college Indore, Ashutosh Srivastava is responsible to ensure that we put our resources to the best use. Ashutosh Srivastava had stints in audit and corporate finance with a Chartered accountant and worked as a MIS officer in Naandi.

Shivam Singh

Creative Designer

Shivam Singh

Creative Designer

Shivam Singh is the graphic designer at The Climate Agenda. His area of expertise include graphic designing, video editing, website design and development & other digital management.His work involves all social media posts, newsletters, videos, posters, banners, templates etc.He is all set to add creatives to the campaigns through his graphics skills.

He holds a bachelor’s degree in B.Sc (Animation and Visual graphics) during his studies he worked as an intern at Bhoomika Media Initiatives.In addition to this he had done graphics and audio/video designs from ZICA. In his free time he likes to enjoy surfing on the internet. He is very fond of movies, web series. Along with this he has a great expertise in digital arts and he loves to do so.

Manish Sinha

Outreach

Manish Sinha

Outreach

Manish Kumar Sinha, the Engagement Specialist at The Climate Agenda. With a robust background spanning over 8 years, Sinha has honed his skills in Social Spheres including Script Writing, Content Research, and Photography. Holding a distinguished Master’s degree in Journalism from Banaras Hindu University, he brings a profound understanding of communication and storytelling to his role.

Sinha’s professional and personal voyages reveal a rich experience, offering a diverse set of perspectives that can be seamlessly applied to the multifaceted demands of institutional responsibilities. His goal is to engineer solutions in the social arena, addressing immediate challenges while simultaneously charting a course for future generations to cultivate a more inclusive, sustainable, and progressive environment.

In his pursuit, Sinha embodies clarity, creativity, and professionalism in the ever-evolving landscape of social change.

Shabnam Parveen

Field Coordinator

Shabnam Parveen

Field Coordinator

Shabnam Parveen is a Field Coordinator at The Climate Agenda, where she is responsible for mobilizing communities (Women, Adolescent & ward level authorities) with various participatory activities and encouraging their active engagement in Environmental Action.

She has completed her Intermediate education. Prior to this role, Shabnam worked as a Community Mobiliser with Mahila Housing Trust (MHT) and as a Peer Educator under the TIKO Project with Mamta HINC. She brings valuable grassroots experience and a strong commitment to community engagement and empowerment.

Along with that she loves travelling & healthy foods.