Murlidhar Devidas Amte, popularly known as Baba Amte, was an Indian social worker and social activist known particularly for his work for the rehabilitation and empowerment of people suffering from leprosy. He has received numerous awards and prizes including the Padma Vibhushan, the Dr. Ambedkar International Award, the Gandhi Peace Prize, the Ramon Magsaysay Award, the Templeton Prize and the Jamnalal Bajaj Award. He is also known as the modern Gandhi of India.
The Padma Vibhushan is the second-highest civilian award of the Republic of India, after the Bharat Ratna. Instituted on 2 January 1954, the award is given for "exceptional and distinguished service". All persons without distinction of race, occupation, position or sex are eligible for these awards. However, government servants including those working with PSUs, except doctors and scientists, are not eligible for these Awards. As of 2022, the award has been bestowed on 325 individuals, including nineteen posthumous and twenty-one non-citizen recipients.
The Padma Shri, also spelled Padma Shree, is the fourth-highest civilian award of the Republic of India, after the Bharat Ratna, the Padma Vibhushan and the Padma Bhushan. Instituted on 2 January 1954, the award is conferred in recognition of "distinguished contribution in various spheres of activity including the arts, education, industry, literature, science, acting, medicine, social service and public affairs". It is awarded by the Government of India every year on India's Republic Day.
Anil Kumar Agarwal was an Indian environmentalist, trained as a mechanical engineer at IIT Kanpur, worked as a science correspondent for the Hindustan Times. He was the founder of the Centre for Science and Environment, a Delhi-based research institute currently led by Sunita Narain.
Institute of Rural Management Anand (IRMA) is an autonomous institution and premier business school located in Anand Gujarat, India with the mandate of contributing to the professional management of rural organizations. IRMA was founded with the belief, borne out by Verghese Kurien’s work in the dairy co-operatives which revolutionized the dairy industry in the country, that the key to effective rural development is professional management. It is considered as the best business school in the Rural and Agricultural Business Management Sector of India.
Manoj N. Joshi is an Indian actor known for working in film, stage television. He has also acted in over 70 films since 1998, many of his roles being comedy. He is the recipient of several awards including a National Film Award. Joshi is popularly known for playing Kachra Seth in Phir Hera Pheri (2006).
Dr. Hanumappa Sudarshan is an Indian social worker and tribal rights activist. He is known for his contributions to the upliftment of the forest dwelling tribes in the Chamarajanagar district of Karnataka. He is also a recipient of the Right Livelihood Award and the Padma Shri.
Chandi Prasad Bhatt is an Indian environmentalist and social activist, who founded Dasholi Gram Swarajya Sangh (DGSS) in Gopeshwar in 1964, which later became a mother-organization to the Chipko Movement, in which he was one of the pioneers. For his work Bhatt was awarded the Ramon Magsaysay Award in 1982, followed by the Padma Bhushan in 2005.
Tribhuvandas Kishibhai Patel was an Indian independence activist, lawyer, and politician. A follower of Mahatma Gandhi, he is regarded as the father of the cooperative movement in India, most notably in the Kaira District Co-operative Milk Producers' Union in 1946, and the Anand Co-operative movement.
Lakshmi Chand Jain (1925–2010) was a political activist and writer. Later, he served at various times as a member of the Planning Commission, as Indian High commissioner to South Africa, as a member of the World Commission on Dams (WCD) and as secretary of the Indian Cooperative Union and the All India Handicrafts Board (AIHB). His position as the ambassador was terminated as the Vajpayee Government felt that he had not defended India's position on Nuclear tests effectively in South Africa. He eventually joined the Indian National Congress. He was posthumously awarded Padma Vibhushan, the second highest civilian award, by the UPA government. However his family declined to accept the award, saying that Jain was against accepting State Honours.
Vijay Mahajan is the chief executive officer (CEO) of the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation and the director of the Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Contemporary Studies.
Shoaib Sultan Khan NI is one of the pioneers of rural development programmes in Pakistan. As a CSP Officer, he worked with the Government of Pakistan for 25 years, later on he served Geneva based Aga Khan Foundation for 12 years, then UNICEF and UNDP for 14 years. Since his retirement, he has been involved with the Rural Support Programmes (RSPs) of Pakistan full-time, on voluntary basis. Today, the Rural Support Programmes have helped form 297,000 community organisations in 110 districts including two Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan.
Kulandei Francis is an activist, social worker, and the founder of the NGO Integrated Village Development Project in Tamil Nadu, India. He was one of six recipients of the Magsaysay Award in 2012 for "his profound faith in community energies, and his sustained programs in pursuing the holistic economic empowerment of thousands of women and their families in rural India".
Dr. Sankar Datta, is an Indian academic and professional development worker. Since the early 1980s, Datta is known for his engagement in rural livelihood promotion and support activities. Most of his field works have been in the undulating terrains of Central India, such as, Chhota Udaipur, in the west, and Jharkhand in the east, which are inhabited by various tribal groups.
Reema Nanavaty is an Indian developmental worker based in Ahmedabad, India. She has been active for three decades in organising women into co-operative organisations, enterprises and trade unions in India. She is the director of SEWA and is credited for building women's livelihoods and enterprises within eighteen states in India as well as in neighbouring countries such as Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bhutan.
Dr. Anil Prakash Joshi is an environmentalist, green activist, and the founder of Himalayan Environmental Studies and Conservation Organization (HESCO), a Dehradun-based voluntary organization. His work majorly includes developing sustainable technologies that are ecology inclusive economy for ecosystem development. He has coined GEP, an ecological growth measure parallel to GDP. GEP has been accepted as a growth measure by the state of Uttarakhand on 5 June 2021. He was selected as the man of the year by Week Magazine in 2003. He is a recipient of the Jamnalal Bajaj Award and is an Ashoka Fellow. The Government of India awarded him the fourth highest civilian honour of the Padma Shri, in 2006, for his contributions to Indian society. He was also awarded Padma Bhushan, third highest civilian award in 2020 for environmental conservation in Uttarakhand. Dr. Joshi appeared in the Kaun Banega Crorepati, Karamveer episode aired on 25 December 2020.
Bonbehari Vishnu Nimbkar was an Indian agricultural scientist and social worker, known for his work in the fields of animal husbandry and agriculture. He founded Nimbkar Agricultural Research Institute, an Indian non-governmental organization engaged in research and development in agriculture, renewable energy and animal husbandry. His work garnered him many awards, including the Padma Shri and the Jamnalal Bajaj Award.
Ravi Kannan RRM is an Indian surgical oncologist, based in Assam, India. He is the Director of Cachar Cancer Hospital and Research Centre (CCHRC), Silchar, a nonprofit hospital, that provides free cancer treatment. He is the former Head of Department of surgical oncology at Adyar Cancer Institute in Chennai. He is a recipient of Padma Shri, one of India's highest civilian honours, and the Ramon Magsaysay Award, the highest award in Asia.
