Rajendra Singh

Rajendra Singh was born at village Daula in Bagpat district in Uttar Pradesh near Meerut. He was the eldest of seven siblings. His father was an agriculturist and looked over their 60 acres of land in the village and where Rajendra did his early schooling. An important event in his life came in 1974, when he was still in high school, Ramesh Sharma, a member of Gandhi Peace Foundation visited their family home in Meerut, this opened up young Rajendra's mind, to issues of village improvement, as Sharma went about cleaning the village, opened a vachnalaya (library) and even got involved in settling local conflicts; soon he involved Rajendra in an alcoholism eradication program. Another important influence was an English language teacher in school, Pratap Singh, who started discussing politics and social issues with his students after class. At this time Emergency was imposed in 1975, making him aware about the issues of democracy and formulate independent views. ==Career==

After completing his studies, he joined government service in 1980, and started his career as a National Service Volunteer for education in Jaipur, from where he was appointed to oversee adult education schools in Dausa district in Rajasthan. The river was awarded the `International River Prize', and in March 2000, then President, K. R. Narayanan visited the area to present the "Down to Earth — Joseph. C. John Award" to the villagers. the urgency of groundwater recharge for maintaining underground aquifers and advocating community control over natural resources. In 2005, he was awarded the Jamnalal Bajaj Award. He also played a pivotal role in stopping the controversial Loharinag Pala Hydro Power Project over river Bhagirathi, the headstream of the Ganges River in 2006, even as G. D. Agrawal, environmentalist from IIT Kanpur went on a hunger strike. In 2009, he led a pada yatra (walkathon), a march of a group of environmentalists and NGOs, through Mumbai city along the endangered Mithi River. On Jan 2014, he did a parikrama along the banks of Godavari River, from Trimbakeshwar to Paithan to urge people to make the river pollution free. Recently he gave lecture on water and its conservation and values of water at Atomic Energy Regulatory Board, Mumbai. ==Awards and honours==

• In 2001, Ramon Magsaysay Award for community leadership in 2001 for his pioneering work in community-based efforts in water harvesting and water management. • In 2005, Jamnalal Bajaj Award for Application of Science and Technology for Rural Development. • In 2008, The Guardian named him amongst its list of "50 people who could save the planet". • In 2015, he won the Stockholm Water Prize, an award known as "the Nobel Prize for water". ==References==