Abodh Aras

Abodh Aras is the Chief Executive Officer of The Welfare Of Stray Dogs (WSD). He has an MBA in Marketing and an undergraduate degree in Hotel Management. Abodh has worked in the corporate sector with companies like DHL Worldwide Express, managing customer services and sales. His passion for animals led him to quit the corporate sector and join Welfare of Stray Dogs in 2000 where he volunteered since 1995.

Varda Mehrotra

Varda Mehrotra is the Executive Director of the Federation of Indian Animal Protection Organisations (FIAPO). Having extensive experience of working with activists and organisations in both India and Scotland, she is currently fulfilling her passion for empowering grassroots animal rights, building a movement, creating a community and encouraging collectives and collaboration. She has designed and set up a host of local and national thematic networks for many animal issues including the largest vegan advocacy network in India – now spanning over 70 cities. Spearheading efforts to make the Indian Animal Protection Movement more robust and resilient, Varda has set up services to provide coaching, mentoring to hundreds of activists, organising and lecturing at dozens of workshops, seminars, conferences and boot camps.  As a staunch advocate of strategic campaigning, she has designed and run several pilots and projects to innovate on new people-powered and alliance-based approaches to solve animal-related problems. Varda has also worked in areas of social enterprises and international development and has been trained in cognitive science, philosophy, computer science, and bioinformatics.

Alok Hissarwala

Alok Hisarwala Gupta Alok Hisarwala Gupta is a human rights lawyer with a back ground in LGBT rights and other civil liberties issues. He has worked on several Human Rights Documentation Reports with the India Centre for Human Rights and Law, Lawyers Collective, Alternative Law Forum, People's for Civil Liberties and Human Rights Watch. Alok is currently working on a project with FIAPO and All Creatures Great and Small (ACGS)documenting cases of animal cruelty across India.

Atul Sarin

Atul is the force behind ​Welfare for Animals in Goa (WAG)​,​ an NGO dedicated to helping animals in distress. For over 8 years, a ​dedicated ​team of staff and volunteers have been using their animal welfare experience to enhance the lives of Goa’s animals. Not only do they rescue injured animals, but they also have fostering and adoption programmes for abandoned animals, beach monitoring & feeding programs for starving cats and dogs during Goa’s ‘off-season’, the monsoon. The WAG clinic, in Siolim, conducts sterilisation, vaccinations and other medical assistance to homeless animals.

They have also set up a state-wide network, on Facebook. Now a thriving community, this social media network has close to 5000 animal lovers reporting and preventing abuse, exchanging information and helping in rescues. We also run a "Vegan Goshala"

Mini Vasudevan

Mini Vasudevan is an engineer by profession who strongly believes that making a difference is as important as making a living. An ardent animal lover, she had a special connection to animals, right from a very young age. She was involved in animal welfare activities for several years both in India and abroad before co-founding Humane Animal Society (HAS) at Coimbatore in 2006. She has been the Managing Trustee of the organization since inception and takes immense pride in the various activities HAS undertakes and the difference the organization has been able to make in the lives of countless animals.

Ravi Keerti

Ravi Keerthi, a former strategic consultant in Agriculture and F&B, is a full time individual animal activist since 2017, started his journey with animal rescues dealing with 350 cases, currently has been focusing on bringing awareness on Veganism, Animal Rights and Environment through guest lectures in schools and colleges sensitizing the youth. Delivering over 90 lectures across Telugu states in the past one year he aims to reach every college in major cities and towns in the coming 2 years. Additionally, he established a platform named “Mission Vegan Andhra” which publishes informative digital content and videos on Vegan lifestyle, Animal Agriculture and its impact on environment and health in native language. These Facebook and Youtube videos have reached around 25 lakh views not only changing people’s perspective towards animals and reconnecting them, but also successfully made hundreds of people to follow cruelty-free and eco-friendly lifestyle.

Janani Krishnamurthy

Having started out as an animal crusader at the age of 9, Janani dreams of a sustainable tomorrow to keep the world going round when she is not around. She dreams of living in a retiral home for animals to be with them till the end of time. She claims she is a ‘fanatic’ and we think it is fanaticism like hers that holds any hope for spreading goodness. She says, 'ANIMALS CAN BE HER FRIENDS BUT NOT THE FOOD ON HER TABLE AND NOT HER ACCESSORIES'.

Karthik Gopalakrishnan

Karthikeyan G is a pioneer in the field of Canine Behavioral Training in Kerala. Not only did he train dogs, but he single-handedly changed the entire dog training culture in the state. For the past ten years he has helped dog owners to change their dog’s behavior and training problems ranging from dominance, house-training, chewing, aggression, destruction, separation anxiety and compulsive behaviors. He has built up his own concept of “Pet Parenting”, which helped to create balanced relationship with Humans and canines. He is a professional consultant to many NGO’s working for street dogs.

Vasanthi Vadi

Vasanthi Vadi is a Founder Member of both Blue Cross of Hyderabad as well as People for Animals. She is also currently a Trustee in FIAPO (Federation of Indian Animal Protection Organizations). She is credited with having started Hyderabad’s first Animal Rights / Welfare group called Abhaya in 1989. She is currently the President of PFA and also a Working Committee member of Blue Cross of Hyderabad. She is in the Ethics committees of a number of organizations on behalf of CPCSEA. She is a successful business woman running her own organization trading in industrial electrical/mechanical capital goods with over 25 employees.

Murthy Kantimahanti

Murthy Kantimahanti is the founder and lead conservation biologist for the Eastern Ghats Wildlife Society (EGWS). He founded the non-profit with an aim to protect the lesser-known and neglected wildlife of the Eastern Ghats landscape in South India. Murthy is an alumnus of Emerging Wildlife Conservation Leaders, which is a collaborative project between the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Defenders of Wildlife, Wildlife Conservation Network, International Fund for Animal Welfare, and White Oak Conservation Center, designed to build capacity for international conservation of wildlife within existing conservation organizations and entities.

Sally Varma

Sally Varma exemplifies selflessness and compassion. For years she has been working tirelessly in making this society a better place for the voiceless living beings. She was selected as one of the 100 women achievers of India in the category of Animal Welfare and was awarded by the President of India!

She has been working for animals in Kerala for a long time now. She attended a welfare training course held by Animal welfare board of India and became an Honorary Animal Welfare Officer and along with that joined NGO Humane Society International /India as Outreach Coordinator in Kerala and opted it as a full time job. Also completed paravet training from Worldwide Veterinary Services in Ooty. Worked with HSI/India in the district of Malappuram, Kerala for 2 years for a sterilisation and vaccination program of street dogs and became famous as the female dog catcher with compassion of Kerala. During the Kerala flood of 2018, worked with the HSI team to rescue animals all over Kerala. Presently working as Senior Outreach Coordinator of HSI/India doing farm animal welfare outreach and awareness in Kerala. Also did a TEDx talk in Trivandrum in January 2019 on the situation of street dogs in Kerala.

Dawn Williams

Dawn William is an exemplary leader and motivator of youngsters. He has personally led many large and small animal rescue operations in extremely challenging conditions. Dawn has also led rescue and relief missions for animals affected by natural calamities, the most recent one being in Orissa during the cyclone. An asset to Blue Cross of India, where he ensures the shelter animals are given the best quality of life, his team is the most responsive to animal emergencies in and around Chennai. His pragmatic, resourceful and diverse tactics have helped animals being abused in slaughter, transport, dairies, circuses and on the streets.

Aravindan V

Aravindan has been a firm believer of the vegan movement and an activist with FIAPO Team from the very beginning. His passion is evident from his bold move of leaving his full time IT job and conducting outreaches instead. Aravindan has broken the shackles of his 30 year old family business of sweets by the name Vijay Sweets by vegan-ising the entire business. He now sells vegan desserts like the very popular Mysore Pak etc. His aim is to make vegan friendly alternatives available for vegans spread all across the country. A great orator, he has conducted over 150 sessions in schools and colleges. He has spread the knowledge about animal cruelty and veganism amongst more than 12,000 young minds.

Nitin Jain

Nitin Jain completed his MS in wireless communication from Univ. of Minnesota and has been working with Broadcomm semiconductors in California, USA as R&D IC design engineer. He took an internal transfer to Broadcomm, Bengaluru in 2017 to actively work for animal rights alongside which he have always been vocal about right from his childhood as ahimsa follower and practitioner.

He co-founded Bengaluru Brigade for animal liberation in 2018 and is actively involved with growing animal liberation movement in India. As a core member of BBAL and Vegan India movement, he is working to take the movement through varied campaigns to various corners of India with his good understanding of various aspects of veganism, religion, culture, history and growth of vegan movement in India.

Manisha Singh

Manisha has 20+ years of work experience, 17 years in the corporate sector with companies such as Flipkart, HP, Oracle, Accenture and HSBC, 2.5 years dabbling in entrepreneurship and freelance writing, and currently working as Sr Program Manager with FIAPO, for supporting vegan businesses. In the corporate world, she volunteered for CSR activities, Social Impact, Diversity and Inclusion programs. Initially starting with rescue, rehab and fostering in an individual capacity, she has been volunteering for animal rights since the last 16 years. A compassion enthusiast, her current role at FIAPO allows her to contribute to multiple causes dear to her- sustainable living, the right to respect and dignity for all animal species on earth, vegan advocacy.

Sarita Joshi

Trained to be a conservationist, Sarita holds a Master of Biodiversity and Conservation. She has worked for more than a year in Social Development Sector and is currently coordinating the Stop Slaughter Cruelty Campaign at FIAPO.Sarita believes in respecting the Dignity of Life of all.

Tauseef Rehman

Tauseef has done his graduation in English from Jamia Millia Islamia and masters in business administration from NDIIT, with an experience of 3.5 years in the Market Research domain. Initially joined FIAPO as a corporate promotions officer for corporate fundraising, now moved to movement building, and works as a campaign co-ordinator facilitating the works of the different NGO’s /individual activist in certain cities like Varanasi, Indore, Mumbai and Jaipur.

Priyanka Sharma

Priyanka is professionally trained in communications and comes with a vast experience of working for corporates for 10 years. Her area of expertise being language & soft skills, communication and customer service.

Priyanka believes in minimalist living and loves spending her time gardening, being outdoors in nature and observing animals and their behavior. She also believes in living a balanced and healthy lifestyle by eating healthy, meditating and staying active.

Koushik Raghavan

Koushik works with FIAPO in the capacity of Research, Monitoring and Evaluations Officer. He has worked on animal rights issues for the past 4 years in various capacities ranging from an on-ground activist to a campaigner to a researcher currently. He has quite a bit of expertise in strategic campaign planning and research.