Chiteisri Devi won the 1st prize at the National Environment Law Paper Presentation Competition held at the College of Legal Studies, University of Petroleum and Energy Studies (UPES), Dehradun held on 31 March - April 1,2012.

As part of Jus Carnivalli, the Annual Law Fest – the competitioninvited abstracts on a range of environmental issues, the previous month from students of any institute within India.

Selected abstracts were then invited to present their papers during the two-day fest. Out of the 125 abstracts received, 48 papers were presented by either solo representatives or teams of two from leading law schools from all over the country.

Chiteisri emerged the winner as her paper “The Ganga – a unique river in a not-so-unique enviro-legal narrative” was appreciated as ‘original, insightful and extremely well-rounded’ by the Judges.

The paper gave a historical account of events related to the Ganga, the legal framework of recent laws with the 1985 Ganga Action Plan and narrated her personal experience of being a student of law involved in the ‘Save Ganga Campaign’ led by India’s pioneer in Environmental Engineering, Prof. G.D. Agarwal (now Swami Gyan Swarup Sanand). It presented a critique of the various competing frameworks of the Law, the State and the Resistance Movements involved unique to river Ganga.It also examined how the identity of this river encapsulates inter-and intra-state water disputes, a multiplicity of stakeholders ranging from Swamis to businessmen, conservation of a unique ecosystem using the lens of riparian ecology and the ethos of a pan-Indian civilization.

Further, she has been invited to present her paper again and share her experience of being involved in the campaign to Save the Ganga or hold a discussion panel and research project to spread awareness on the issue for the students at the UPES, Dehradun.