Magsaysay Awardees Digital Collection

Mahesh Chander Mehta

Description

1997 Ramon Magsaysay Awardee for Public Service from India. Mahesh Chander Mehta champions environmental law in India, successfully fightingt an astonishing 40-odd cases in the public interest. Among the landmark environmental cases he has won involve preservation of the Taj Mahal through the banning of coal-based industries whose effluents were eating into the soft marble of the shrine; the installation of sewage plants in 250 towns and cities in the Ganges Basin after 5,000 industries were fined for polluting the holy river; and the relocation of 9,000 industries away from New Delhi, in a move to protect the city’s remaining forest; and the improvement of air quality in India’s four largest metropolitan cities, which eventually led to New Delhi becoming the first city in the world where all public transport run on compressed natural gas.

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Citation of Mahesh Chander Mehta

In electing Mahesh Chander Mehta to receive the 1997 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Public Service, the board of trustees recognizes his claiming for India's present and future citizens their constitutional right to a clean and healthy environment.

Mahesh Chander Mehta's acceptance speech at the 1997 Ramon Magsaysay Award Presentation Ceremony held in Manila on 31 August 1997.

Official biography of Mahesh Chander Mehta in relation to his Ramon Magsaysay Award for Public Service in 1997.

Curriculum Vitae of Mahesh Chander Mehta prior to her Ramon Magsaysay Award for Public Service in 1997.

"No industry - no matter how vital to the state or economy - could escape responsibility for harming the environment and endangering workers and the public."

A paper entitled "Law and Jurisprudence for Environmental Protection and Sustainable Development in South Asia: with Special Focus on India" written by Mahesh Chander Mehta. Environmental lawyer Mehta was awarded with the Ramon Magsaysay Award for…

Article entitled "Delhi's Green Warrior: As Breathing Gets Tough, [Mahesh Chander] Mehta Gets Tougher" published in Asiaweek on 25 August 1995.

An interview of Mahesh Chander Mehta by V. Venkatesan entitled "In Defense of Judicial Activism" published in the Frontline on December 2000.

In the midst of the prizes, however, a single plaque stands out. It captures the essence of Mehta's ecological activism - and, indeed, that of numerous others of his persuasion - with these words: "Clean environment starts with me."

Lecture entitled "Making the Law Work for the Environment" presented by Mahesh Chander Mehta in relation to his Ramon Magsaysay Award for Public Service Service in 1997.