Indian journalist
Pushkin Phartyal (March 1968 - 4 February 2016) was a journalist and social worker from Uttarakhand, India. He was noted for his work in alleviating rural poverty, strengthening local institutions and rural livelihoods, and climate change mitigation in the Himalayas of Uttarakhand.
Personal life and education.
Phartyal had a PhD in history, postgraduate degrees in history and sociology, a postgraduate diploma in journalism and mass communication, and a diploma in tourism. At the Kumaon University, he was an active member of the National Cadet Corps, and won the gold medal for the best cadet in the Uttar Pradesh state. He was also elected as the joint secretary and the president of the student union at Kumaon University. Phartyal's friend Girish Ranjan Tiwari writes in his commemorative essay that Phartyal had been active in the student movement of 1990 and as a consequence had to spend several days in prison at Fatehgarh.
Phartyal belonged to the town of Nainital, in Uttarakhand. He was married and had a daughter.
Career.
After attaining his PhD, Phartyal worked as a journalist for the Hindi daily "Dainik Jagran" and the Press Trust of India (PTI). He remained associated with PTI till his death.
In 2003, Phartyal joined, on invitation, the Nainital-based NGO Central Himalayan Environmental Association (CHEA). In 2008, he took over as its executive director. In this capacity, he founded the Indian Mountain Initiative, later known as the Integrated Mountain Initiative, a platform for policy advocacy in relation to various interlinked issues of mountain-dwelling communities of twelve Indian states with mountains. As part of his work for CHEA, Phartyal introduced the concept of community carbon forestry with ecosystem services, trained village communities in sustainable development strategies, and worked on restoring Uttarakhand's Van Panchayats, all while actively involving the state in this work.
Phartyal represented CHEA at various UNFCCC meetings. Till early 2016, he also led CHEA's participation in the Kailash Sacred Landscape Conservation and Development Initiative, a transboundary programme between India, China, and Nepal stewarded by ICIMOD.
Phartyal served as a faculty member of the Centre for Development Studies of the Uttarakhand Academy of Administration in Nainital for seven years.
Phartyal also acted as the treasurer of the Nainital Mountaineering Club.
Death.
In January 2016, Phartyal was on an academic visit to the Department of Geography, Cambridge University, in collaboration with Prof. Bhaskar Vira. During this visit, a tumour was detected in Phartyal's brain. Pushkin Phartyal died in Lucknow on 4 February 2016, at the age of 47, from brain cancer.