Sangita Iyer

Sangita Iyer is an Indian-Canadian broadcast journalist, writer, biologist and documentary filmmaker.[1] She is known for her advocacy on wildlife conservation, especially for wild elephants, and for exposing the atrocities against Asian elephants by religious institutions. Iyer has been featured in the BBC News.[2] She is the founding executive director and president of the Voice for Asian Elephants Society, which was created in 2016 with the aim of protecting wild and captive elephants of India.

Sangita Iyer
BornSangita Iyer
Kerala, India
NationalityIndian-Canadian
CitizenshipCanadian
OccupationWildlife Filmmaker, broadcast journalist, writer and biologist
Websitewww.vfaes.org/more-about-sangita

Iyer's debut documentary film, Gods in Shackles, was based on the treatment of captive elephants in Kerala. The film was nominated at the United Nations General Assembly, featured at the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) and has received over a dozen international film festival awards.[3][4] The documentary was inspired by the encounters and witnesses gathered by Iyer.[5] She is also a National Geographic explorer, and has produced a 26-part short documentary series about Asian elephants, using the National Geographic Society storytelling award.

Biography

Sangita Iyer was born in Kerala, India. She has worked in Kenya, where she taught biology and ecology to Nairobi high school students in the early 1980s, and in Bermuda as the primetime news anchor and nature and wildlife reporter for the ABC/CBS affiliate, the Bermuda Broadcasting Company. She currently lives in Toronto, Canada, where she has served as a videographer and host for Rogers TV network.

Career

Iyer pursued her career in journalism in 1999 as an health and environmental journalist. She completed her MA degree in environmental education and communication in 2012. She produced reports related to nature and wildlife for Discovery Channel science-news programme Daily Planet. She co-founded the Bermuda Environmental Alliance in 2009 and she founded the Voice for Asian Elephants Society in 2016.

In 2013, Iyer began to document the elephants in Kerala that are exploited by religious institutions, and created the documentary film Gods in Shackles (2016) which portrays the suffering faced by the temple elephants during cultural festivals.[6][7] She decided to make the film after witnessing the torture faced by the elephants during a trip to India in December 2013.[8] The documentary opened to positive reviews from critics and won international awards.[9] Iyer is the first woman to have made a documentary about captive elephants in Kerala.

Iyer received the 2016 Nari Shakti Puraskar award from the then Indian President Pranab Mukherjee.[10][11] In addition, Iyer has received numerous academic awards and scholarships.

Controversies

In November 2019, a petition was filed by Viswa Gaja Seva Samithi organisation in the Kerala High Court to prevent Iyer from conducting a mahout (elephant care) training summit called "Gentle Giants Summit" at a government-owned elephant rehabilitation centre in Thiruvananthapuram.[12] The plea claimed that she was a foreign national in contrast to the national policies and was also accused of misusing the official emblem of Kerala state government in the brochures for the three-day workshop. However, Iyer presented her Overseas Citizenship of India (OCI) card, affording her the privileges of Indian citizens,[13][14][15] and the Kerala Forest Department had granted her the use of its emblem in their partnership on the summit.

Iyer stated that she had been a victim of cyberbullying since the release of Gods in Shackles.[16]

See also

References
  1. "Interview | Canada-based Sangita Iyer was inspired to participate in Kerala Women's Wall campaign in support of women's rights". The New Indian Express. Retrieved 2020-09-07.
  2. "'The woman trying to save India's tortured temple elephants'". BBC news article. 2020-09-07. Retrieved 2020-09-07.
  3. Ramnath, Nandini. "Documentary 'Gods in Shackles' on temple elephants is an eye-opener". Scroll.in. Retrieved 2020-09-07.
  4. Gavin Haines, Travel writer. "New documentary exposes brutal treatment of India's temple elephants". The Telegraph. Retrieved 2020-09-07.
  5. Poorvaja, S. (2016-07-21). "Highlighting the plight of Kerala's captive elephants". The Hindu. ISSN 0971-751X. Retrieved 2020-09-07.
  6. "The woman trying to save India's tortured temple elephants". BBC News. 2020-09-06. Retrieved 2020-09-07.
  7. Jul 20, TNN / Updated:; 2016; Ist, 13:52. "Gods in shackles: Plight of temple elephants | Chennai News - Times of India". The Times of India. Retrieved 2020-09-07.CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  8. "Seeing the Mistreatment of Elephants in India Was Haunting". HuffPost Canada. 2014-01-07. Retrieved 2020-09-07.
  9. Naha, Abdul Latheef (2019-01-17). "A moving work on gods in shackles". The Hindu. ISSN 0971-751X. Retrieved 2020-09-07.
  10. Bureau, B. C. A. (2017-03-09). "Nari Shakti Puruskar Awardees: Full List". Best Current Affairs. Retrieved 2020-09-07.
  11. "More about Sangita". Voice for Asian Elephants Society. Retrieved 2020-10-03.
  12. Nov 12, TNN / Updated:; 2019; Ist, 13:34. "Kerala HC seeks government views on plea against summit on elephants | Kochi News - Times of India". The Times of India. Retrieved 2020-09-07.CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  13. "A mammoth move". The New Indian Express. Retrieved 2020-09-07.
  14. "Why Kerala must protect its elephants: 3-day summit in state involves stakeholders". www.thenewsminute.com. Retrieved 2020-09-07.
  15. "Kerala mulls training programme for mahouts by world-renowned experts". The New Indian Express. Retrieved 2020-09-07.
  16. "Woman who made documentary on elephants in Kerala faces cyber-bullying". The New Indian Express. Retrieved 2020-09-07.
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