B.G. Menon
Assistant Director


bg@leadindia.org

Nagrajan M
Manager - LEADnet


nagrajan@leadindia.org

Bhawana Luthra
Manager, Training


bhawana@leadindia.org

Vijai P Singh
Program Manager


vijai@leadindia.org

Satish Kumar
Finance Officer


satish@leadindia.org

Mr Menon is a Commerce Graduate with a Post Graduation in Marketing and Sales Management. He worked with NDDB [National Dairy Development Board] for twelve years in various capacities. From active marketing he deviated to Sales Coordination, Logistics, Press Publicity and Advertising during his final years with the National Dairy Development Board.

After serving 12 years in NDDB, he took up another assignment with P S Bedi group of companies, a reputed freight forwarding and clearing agent, export house and GSA for Modiluft / Lufthansa Airlines apart from other lines of business. He held a dual post here for four years, as the Executive Assistant to two of the Directors and also as Manager of one of their group companies called Shotam, which provided support services to the Power Sector. When Lufthansa withdrew its support of Modiluft in 1997, he had to move on.

He joined Centre for Research on Environment, Ecology and Development (CREED), which was hosting

the LEAD Program, in April 1997 as Manager [Finance, Personnel & Administration] and handled this position for 4 years.

Since January 1st. 2001 the LEAD Programme in India is being managed directly by a Society called LEAD-India. The services of Mr Menon were transferred to this society. He was redesignated as Program Manager and took on several more program activities in addition to Finance, Personnel and Administration.

Over the years as Program Manager, several portfolios were handed over and handled by him like Finance, Administration, Personnel, HR, Projects, Logistics, Training, Liaison, DRC's and Communication .

Currently as Assistant Director, he heads the Communication Wing of LEAD India and also handles Administration and overseas the Finance Division.

Nagarajan hails from Trivandrum, the capital of Kerala, one of the southern most states of India. Kerala is a land of natural beauty with sunny beaches, wild forests, backwaters and lots of greenery. For this reason he developed an interest in nature and the environment. His father belongs to Kerala and his mother belongs to Tamil Nadu. Hence, other than English and Hindi he is also proficient in Malayalam and Tamil.

He has a Bachelor of Science Degree in Zoology from Kerala University (Mahatma Gandhi College, Trivandrum). In addition, he also has lower and higher grade certificates in Typewriting from Kerala Board of Technical Exams, Junior Grade Certificate in Shorthand from Mumbai and a Diploma in Desktop Publishing from Delhi.

Nagarajan has been with the LEAD Program since 1996 when it was being managed by a private consultant of

Rockefeller Foundation. When Centre for Research Ecology and Environment (CREED) took over the LEAD program in 1997, his services were transferred and he worked with CREED till end of 2000.

Since January 1st, 2001 the LEAD Programme in India is being managed directly by a Society called LEAD-India. The services of Nagarajan were again transferred to this society. He joined as Program Coordinator, Logistics and MIS, looking after the networking area and coordinating the LEAD India training program.

Currently he is the Manager LEADnet and is mainly responsible for the Networking within the Secretariat and with the Fellows Community as also Coordinating the Website and assisting as part of the Communication Wing.

Bhawana Luthra is Manager, Training at LEAD India. She carries a sound understanding of the community based demand responsive and participatory approaches to project planning and management, particularly in the water, sanitation, health & hygiene and livelihoods sector. Has first hand on-the-ground experience of facilitating community processes, identifying best practices, and culling out and documenting key learning from innovative community driven projects in Madhya Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.

Was the team leader for organizing a series of community led total sanitation (CLTS) training of trainers workshops in the states of Himachal Pradesh and Meghalaya in India. Has trained more than 500 trainers in CLTS so far as the leader of the resource team providing capacity building support to Government functionaries, NGOs, CBOS in the approach and methodology of Community Led Total Sanitation in Himachal Pradesh under the assignment“ Resource Agency for support in Community Led Total Sanitation in India”.

Carried out a World Bank assisted study on the issues and options related to the monitoring and evaluation (M&E) in the rural water supply and sanitation (RWSS) sector in the country. Formative research on 'Triggers of Behaviour change in rural communities' followed by designing a Sanitation IEC manual for 'change-agents' in Himachal Pradesh'. The assignment involved applied research based on extensive stakeholders consultation including secondary literature survey and field investigations.

As a researcher, engaged in Formative household research on water treatment, storage and use in Andhra Pradesh. The objective of the household research is to “gain an in-depth understanding of consumers’ perceptions, attitudes, knowledge and practices related to water treatment, storage and use,” by exploring a variety of factors that influence middle- and low-income households’ HWTS behaviors in Andhra Pradesh. Results will inform a strategy to launch a commercial market for HWTS products among low- to middle-income consumers in India.

As a RWSS specialist, was involved in contributing to the design and conduct of training programmes for the capacity building of grassroots functionaries engaged in the implementation of Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC) in the district of Bilaspur in Chhattisgarh using community led total sanitation (CLTS) approach within the framework of an assignment funded by UNICEF. Has also organized CLTS workshops in the above-mentioned districts.

Was also engaged as one of the team members in designing and operationalising a knowledge management (KM) strategy for rural water and supply and sanitation (RWSS) sector in the state of Maharashtra, which also includes identification and documentation of best practices as one of the key KM tools. The assignment is commissioned under The World Bank assisted Jalswarajya Project in Maharashtra.Has also lead the development of a Sanitation IEC manual for rural Himachal Pradesh to be used by community facilitators in TSC villages. This was assisted by WSP-SA, The World Bank.

Vijay Singh is currently working as Program Manager at LEAD India. He holds Master’s degree in Botany and M. Phil. In Environment Management form VIkram University, Ujjain. He has awarded Ph. D. Degree on his thesis work entitled “ Ecological study on Nitrogen Related Processes and Nitrous Oxide (N2O) emissions from Forest, Grassland Wetland and Agricultural Habitats” by Vikram University. Dr. Singh has worked as Post Doctoral Fellow in Institute of Environment Management and Plant Sciences, Vikram Univesrsity, and worked on Sustainable Utilization and conservation of bio-resources with major emphasis on Water Resource Management and Restoration of Degraded Forest. Dr. Singh has visited The Netherlands to attend the International Conference on Non CO2 Greenhouse Gases and worked in Indonesia as Overseas consultant for wastewater treatment and solid waste management at Pt. Ganpati Trading, Medan, North Sumatera and has experience about

installation of “Constructed Wetland” Root Zone technique for treatment of domestic and industrial waste water.

Satish holds a Master of Arts Degree in Economics with a Post Graduate Diploma in Computer Applications. He joined Center for Research on Environment and Ecology and Development [CREED] in the year 1997. His work involves providing assistance in office activities. He assists in making arrangements, for study materials and other lecture papers, collection of documents from the associates.

Before joining CREED he was not much aware or conscious about the environmental damages and the harm it was doing. In this office he has had the chance to meet with a lot of persons directly involved in ecology and environment protection moreover quite often this being the topic of discussion during the lunch or coffee breaks, he has begun to understand the problem on hand.

From 1st January 2001 the LEAD Programme in India has been hosted by a registered society called

LEAD-India and Satish has joined as Programme Assistant.

He started getting more involved in accounts and financial work and today is handling the accounts division as Finance Officer.