An Advocate of Human Rights, India

Medha Patkar (born December 1, 1954, Bombay [now Mumbai], Maharashtra state, India) Indian social activist known chiefly for her work with people displaced by the Narmada Valley Development Project (NVDP), a large-scale plan to dam the Narmada River and its tributaries in the Indian states of Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, and Maharashtra. An advocate of human rights, Patkar founded her campaigns on two basic tenets of the Indian constitution: the rights to life and livelihood. Born to socially active parents, Patkar grew up in an environment imbued with a sense of social justice and freedom. She graduated with a bachelor’s degree in science from Ruia College in Mumbai and earned a master’s degree in social work from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in the early 1980s.