Abhiveer Gulati
2026 Eco-Hero
3rd PLACE
Terry Yu
Age 16
Delhi, India
NCR Clean Air Campaign: Driving Grassroots Action and Legal Accountability
At 16 years old, environmental activist and youth advocate Abhiveer Gulati is bridging the gap between socioeconomic privilege and grassroots public health action in India’s National Capital Region (NCR). Abhiveer’s trajectory shifted profoundly at age ten during a soccer match in Delhi’s toxic winter air. Both he and his friend Mohammad, who lived in a neighboring slum, fell alarmingly sick with severe respiratory distress, requiring emergency hospitalization. While Abhiveer returned home to the safety of high-duty indoor air purifiers, he confronted a stark environmental injustice: millions of economically marginalized children in Delhi suffer chronic, irreversible lung damage completely unprotected. Driven by the conviction that clean air is a fundamental right guaranteed under Article 21 of the Indian Constitution, Abhiveer refused to accept this status quo. In late 2023, he launched the "NCR Clean Air Campaign" to mobilize communities, protect frontline workers, and hold municipal government institutions accountable.
What began as a personal realization has rapidly expanded under Abhiveer's leadership into a multi-pronged community resilience network across New Delhi and Gurgaon. Partnering with the Chintan Environmental Research and Action Group and other NGOs, Abhiveer looks directly toward civic application, hosting over 35 educational workshops across six major slums, including Nizamuddin Basti and Bhawar Singh Camp, to teach families about the invisible harms of toxic emissions and necessary protective measures to adopt. To provide immediate public health relief, he teamed up with his childhood friend Mohammad to host DIY mask-making workshops utilizing recycled materials. Together, they have distributed over 700 protective masks to highly exposed slum residents, delivery drivers, and traffic officers. To eliminate the hazardous winter practice of burning street trash for warmth, Abhiveer organized the distribution of 300 warmth kits to night guards and informal workers. He is currently spearheading an online fundraiser to procure sewing machines and fabrics to scale this grassroots mask production directly within the vulnerable communities.
Managing an initiative across vast socioeconomic divides required Abhiveer to design strict compliance and transit frameworks at the neighborhood level. He independently partners with Resident Welfare Associations (RWAs) to host quarterly meetings, establishing community blueprints that enforce the government’s Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP) to limit construction dust and ban localized waste burning. To actively target vehicular emissions, Abhiveer launched digital carpooling platforms for office commuters and encouraged students to avail school transport at neighbourhood schools, thus successfully mitigating dozens of single-passenger trips among local commuters. His parents provided support solely by introducing him to initial community representatives and offering guidance on legal strategies. To fuel environmental restoration alongside emission cuts, Abhiveer coordinated community plantation drives that successfully added 150 saplings to local parks.
Abhiveer’s strategic acumen matches his extraordinary legal and civic advocacy. Recognizing that local education must be paired with structural change, he, together with a like-minded student coalition, approached the Delhi High Court to file a landmark writ petition. The litigation seeks judicial intervention for addressing municipal enforcement gaps and demands a formal recalibration of the state's sports calendar to protect youth athletes from being forced to compete during peak crop burning months. His systemic approach garnered national press coverage and live radio broadcasts. Piercing through administrative red tape, Abhiveer also filed a statutory Right to Information (RTI) application against the Municipal Corporation of Delhi, demanding transparent financial accountability regarding delayed mechanical sweeping machines and underutilized pollution funds. Beyond legal courts, his research capabilities shine; Abhiveer gathered primary field data on how toxic air targets youth, contributing to Chintan NGO's baseline survey report "A Generation Under Siege" and to the cover story “A Crisis of Childhood”, as a named contributor, in Chintan’s launch magazine “ON AIR” (March 2026).
What makes Abhiveer's work uniquely meaningful is its complete integration across broader social justice landscapes. Rather than compartmentalizing his focus, he brings his operational expertise to multiple humanitarian crises. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he supported medical logistics for oxygen concentrators and launched a hardware recycling drive that refurbished digital devices for rural students under the Bharti Foundation, earning him their official "Young Changemaker" designation. In collaboration with NABARD and Airtel Payments Bank, he led 40 financial literacy workshops across ten rural districts in Bihar and Jharkhand to onboard small women entrepreneurs and farmers into the formal banking system and designed a Hindi-interface budgeting application, SavingWise.org to assist them with sound saving and budgeting habits. An avid economics enthusiast and Vasant Valley School student, Abhiveer aims to pursue an undergrad degree in the United States, utilizing systemic policy and civil action to dismantle environmental inequalities.
"Air pollution shouldn't be an issue where safety is bought by the wealthy while the vulnerable are left to choke. True environmental justice means building legal and community systems that protect the child on the street just as fiercely as the child indoors."
