Backgrounds (FINAL COPY)

Ashley Sears
PR 2420
March 13, 2007


BACKGROUND


Robert F. Kennedy Jr. the third of eleven children graduated from Harvard College in 1974 with a B.A. in government. He also acquired a Juris Doctor degree for the University of Virginia Law School however that didn’t keep him out of getting in trouble with the law. He was arrested for possession of heroin in 1983 in the Rapid South Dakota Airport. He was found unconscious in a bathroom stall. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to two years probation with 1,500 hours of community service. It was during this time that he joined the Riverkeeper organization to satisfy his hours and afterwards the group hired him as their chief prosecuting attorney. Since then Kennedy has served in many other positions including Clinical Professor of Environmental Law and co-director of the Environmental Litigation Clinic. He also participated in a lobbying firm; the Natural Resources Defense Council and created a bottled water company, Tear of the Clouds LLC that donates all its profits to The Waterkeeper Alliance. Kennedy now currently co-hosts Ring of Fire on Air America Radio and uses his position to make the public aware of serious environmental issues like pollution and global warming.


Ramaswamy R. Iyer graduated from Bombay with an impressive resume; a B.A. in English Language and Literature with an honors and a post graduate diploma in Economic and Social Administration from the London School of Economics in 1965. Over the years he has accumulated many different jobs including several civil service positions in various Government Offices and Ministries, eventually concluding as Secretary to the Government of India. After retirement he held many other positions including Secretary Senior Adviser for various governmental departments from 1981-1990 and joined the Public Enterprises Board from 1987-1990. He is and has been a member of various committees dealing with the environment by discussion panels, projects and evaluations including FMG, Ad-hoc Task Force and most recently the Baglihar Project in May 2005. Among the Professional/Institutional memberships honorary research professor Ramaswamy has published various books, policy research papers and articles for newspapers and journals. For the time he currently is working on no formal research projects but instead working on diverse subjects.