The Legal Initiative for Forest and Environment (LIFE), founded by Ritwick Dutta and Rahul Choudhary in 2008, has won one of this year's four Right Livelihood Awards for its “innovative legal work empowering communities to protect their resources in the pursuit of environmental democracy in India”. The prize is also referred to as Sweden's alternative Nobel. With a team of just 21, LIFE fights developmental projects on behalf of local communities and individuals who depend on the land affected. Some of the cases LIFE has fought and won have involved UK mining giant Vedanta, steelmakers POSCO, Jindal Steel & Power, and the French industrial house Lafarge.