About

Waste Frames, is an online hub, framing all things waste, trash and garbage and livelihoods in waste-resource space. The hub consists of poems, photographs, essays, podcast, reference guides, publications, research, policy and data analysis and reviews.

Pinky Chandran

Pinky has over two decades of experience spanning careers across international education, research, training, community mobilization, waste management, livelihood development, policy advocacy, communication and strategy, and community media.

She joined IDP Education Australia, in 2000, as a key member of the start-up team and was instrumental in establishing operations, building networks, and identifying opportunities for partnerships. She was able to successfully work across all verticals of counseling, business development, consulting, and customer & client services, day-to day operations, marketing & branding, training, event management and market research. She was responsible for facilitating the Articulation Program between Christ College, Bangalore and Griffith University, Australia in 2003 and also coordinated the activities of the IDP Peace Scholarship in 2004.While at IDP she received two awards from the IDP Global Network; for Outstanding Service to IDP for initiative, leadership and dedication above expectations; and for Outstanding Service to IDP achievement through excellence in customer service, innovation in marketing, training and mentoring and outstanding teamwork.

Pinky joined the Jain Group of Institutions to head the Training & Development Division in 2005. A certified practitioner of Neuro-Linguistic Programming from the National Federation of Neuro-linguistic Psychology (NFNLP), USA, she has trained over 2500 individuals on leadership, team building, customer service, personal development and effective interviewing.

An ardent believer in the power of community media, she has been instrumental in the launch of Radio Active, a community radio station, in June 2007 in Bangalore. The station is dedicated to providing a space for different groups to come together to create their own media landscape. Under her leadership, the station has reached out to different communities of interest, community based organizations and institutions, expanded broadcast hours to 24 hours and has attained an exemplary status of being one of the most inclusive and community – centred station in the country.

As an active participant in the advocacy of community media, she was elected as the Joint Secretary of the Community Radio Association, India, and Secretary of the South Zone Chapter of the Community Radio Association, India, from April 2012 to February 2015. She continues to be a lifetime member of CRA.

She has been part of various working groups and committee, set up on by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting like the Working Group on Peer Support Network and Revisions to Community Radio Policy (2013), Technical Committee, for Community Radio Support Scheme (2013) and was also a Jury Member- National Community Radio Awards, instituted by the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting (2013 and 2014)

She has also been deputed by Commonwealth Educational Media Centre for Asia (CEMCA) to mentor Deccan Radio – a community radio station in Hyderabad to develop a sustainability plan (2012-13)  and was deputed on behalf of the Department of Science & Technology, Ministry of Science & Technology, GOI on behalf of Commonwealth Educational Media Centre for Asia ( CEMCA) to conduct Baseline and Capacity Building Workshops for the Planet Earth project  to  Kongu Engineering College, Erode, ( 2009) and  MOP Vaishnav College, Chennai ( 2009);  the Science for Women’s Health project to VIIT Baramati ( 2009 ) and FTII, Pune ( 2010)

She is a steering committee member of the South Asia Network for Community Media ( SANCOM), a virtual network that was launched in 2015 to promote community media in the South Asia region, for a democratic and pluralistic media environment

Pinky is an active campaigner for decentralized community based waste management and is a founder member of the Solid Waste Management Roundtable, (SWMRT) Bangalore. She has worked on several policy related documents and reports and has co-authored a paper on  “A Working Observation on SWM Policy- Karnataka State and ULB Bangalore”, and “A working observation on the Dry Waste Collection Centres”, to gauge their performance and contribution. She has co-conducted a study for the Revenue Department, Government of India on “Temple Waste Management in Bangalore Case Study of 10 temples in Bangalore “. She has been instrumental in co-promoting the concept of Dry Waste Collection centres in Bangalore, and has spent over two years with her colleagues documenting the operations of the pilot centre in HSR Layout. In addition, she has been a key contributor to several policy initiatives for the city. She is also the lead author in yet to be released report titled ”A Mirage: Assessment of Swachh Bharat Abhiyan and SWM Rules 2016: Wastepickers Perspectives across India”.

As one of the trustees of HasiruDala,  ( means “Green Force”), a social justice organisation working with  waste-pickers, sorters and itinerant waste-buyers in Bengaluru, working towards improving working conditions and access of waste, she is focused on training and capacity building for waste-pickers and has developed the “Waste-picker Training Manual and the “Scrap Dealer Training manual”. A keen researcher she has also co-authored a paper on the “Informal Waste Workers Contribution in Bengaluru”, to determine their economic contribution to the city. She was the lead author and researcher in the book “Valuing Urban Waste: The need for comprehensive recycling policy in India- 2018” that mapped informal recycling clusters ib Bengaluru, Mumbai and Delhi.

In 2012, she was selected among 600 candidates as a delegate for the inaugural Australia- India Youth Dialogue; the AIYD was created with the aim of forging a sustainable strategic dialogue between the youth of Australia and India in the areas of education, economics, business, security and climate change. In 2014, she received the AIYD Alumni grants for a small study titled “Community Radio: Lessons from Australia”. The report was released in January 2016

She also serves as a Board Member of SMART, an NGO working on social change and has co-conducted Capacity Building Workshop for operating community radio stations and Mahila Samakhya Groups in the Asha Jyoti Kendra districts of Uttar Pradesh, on behalf of Department of Women and Child, Government of Uttar Pradesh and UNICEF and Co organised Community Radio Awareness Workshops, on behalf of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India, in partnership with SMART at Vadodara ( 23 – 25 January 2016), Varanasi ( 18 – 20 February 2016), Ranchi (25 – 27 February 2016), Udaipur ( 11 – 12 November 2016), Patna (12 – 13 December 2016 ) and Allahabad (17- 18 February 2017), Manipur ( 21 to 23 September 2017) Goa ( 21 to 23 November 2018) Port Blair ( 28 to 30th Jan 2019).

She has co-authored “Communicating the Sustainable Development Goals-A Toolkit for Community Radio Stations”, developed by SMART and Supported by UNESCO and UNICEF

She has co-founded Co Media Lab, an independent and convergent community media platform that serves as resource centre, newsroom and a space for dialogues and discussions, for community / citizen contributors.

An animal welfare activist, she makes it a point to devote time to tend to street dogs in the city and has co-founded Stray Pals which works on policy advocacy issues on street animals with the municipality, in addition to training, sensitization and handling cruelty cases.