Vinayak Lohani

Last updated

Vinayak Lohani
Vinayak Lohani receiving the Padma Shri Award in 2025.jpg
Lohani receiving the Padma Shri in 2025
Born (1978-04-12) 12 April 1978 (age 47)
Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh
NationalityIndian
CitizenshipIndia
Education B.Tech, MBA
Alma mater IIT Kharagpur, IIM Calcutta
Known forFounder of Parivaar, Social Entrepreneur
Awards Padma Shri (2025)

Vinayak Lohani is the founder of Parivaar, a humanitarian institution based in West Bengal. [1] Lohani was influenced by the teachings of Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda, particularly Vivekananda's concept of serving the "Divine in Man. [2] [3] [4]

Contents

In January 2025, he was honored with the Padma Shri, India's fourth-highest civilian award, by the Government of India. [5] [6]

Early life and education

Vinayak Lohani was born in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh and did his schooling there. His family roots are from Almora district of Kumaon region in Uttarakhand. He went to IIT Kharagpur to do his B.Tech and thereafter worked for Infosys for a year. In 2001, he joined IIM Calcutta to do his MBA. [7] [8]

Career

At IIM Calcutta, Vinayak opted out of the placement process. After completing the MBA course, with just 3 children in a small rented building and almost no financial resources, he started Parivaar for children from impoverished and destitute backgrounds in late 2003. [2] At the end of 2004, Parivaar purchased its own land and developed its first campus: Parivaar Ashram. In 2011, Parivaar expanded to having separate campuses for boys and girls. As of December 2023 , there are more than 1900 resident children (girls and boys) at Parivaar, making it the largest and high-quality residential program for children from impoverished strata in West Bengal.

In 2016–17, Parivaar also started working in Madhya Pradesh. It has started 832 Nutritional Meals cum Education centers for children in selected impoverished tribal and rural pockets called 'Sri Ramakrishna Vivekananda Seva Kutir' in 18 districts serving more than 40,000 children. [9] Parivaar also runs 2 residential schools and 2 hostels in the districts of Dewas, Sehore and Mandla of Madhya Pradesh. More than 1100 boys and girls from different tribal geographies of the state are residing in these campuses. [10] Apart from these, Parivaar also runs 93 free 24*7 ambulances [11] across 23 districts and 21 mobile medical clinics in 8 districts covering 982 villages [12] in Madhya Pradesh, under which more than 15 lac patients have been served till December 2024. Under its Vision Restoration Program, Parivaar has organized more than 5700 camps in 42 months in collaboration with several eye hospitals under which more than 6.48 lac patients have been served and 72 thousand free eye surgeries have been performed. [13]

Vinayak with children at Parivaar Parivaar children.JPG
Vinayak with children at Parivaar

Awards and honors

References

  1. ↑ "Tehelka - The People's Paper". Archive.tehelka.com. 20 November 2004. Archived from the original on 5 November 2013. Retrieved 5 November 2013.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "National Child Welfare Award for 2011". Sociovigil. 11 January 2013. Archived from the original on 5 November 2013. Retrieved 4 November 2013.
  3. ↑ "Soulless Traffick Shown The Palm | Vinayak Lohani". Outlookindia.com. 9 February 2004. Retrieved 5 November 2013.
  4. ↑ "The Beauty Of Illuminated Things | Vinayak Lohani". Outlookindia.com. Retrieved 5 November 2013.
  5. ↑ "Padma Award Winners 2025 Full List: Padma Vibhushan, Padma Bhushan, Padma Shri". Bru Times News.
  6. ↑ "Padma Awards 2025 announced". pib.gov.in.
  7. ↑ "BLOGS/Beyond the Numbers-The Power of One". Forbes India. Retrieved 2 July 2013.
  8. 1 2 3 4 "About Parivaar and its Founder Vinayak Lohani". arpanfoundation. Retrieved 4 November 2013.
  9. ↑ "Parivaar MP". Parivaar. Archived from the original on 14 December 2018. Retrieved 14 December 2018.
  10. ↑ "Parivaar MP - Residential Institutions". Parivaar.
  11. ↑ "Parivaar MP - Free 24*7 Ambulance Service". Parivaar.
  12. ↑ "Parivaar MP - Mobile Health Clinics - Parivaar". Archived from the original on 25 December 2023. Retrieved 25 December 2023.
  13. ↑ "Parivaar MP - Vision Restoration Program". Parivaar.
  14. ↑ "Mamata Shankar, Pt Tejendra Narayan among 9 Padma awardees from Bengal". The Times of India. 25 January 2025. Archived from the original on 26 January 2025. Retrieved 26 January 2025.
  15. ↑ "भोपाल के नर्मदा समग्र और इंदौर के 56 दुकान व्यापारी संगठन को मिलेगा मध्य प्रदेश गौरव सम्मान". Nai Dunia. 7 November 2022.
  16. ↑ Department of Public Relations, M.P. https://www.mpinfo.org/Home/TodaysNews?newsid=20221107N63&fontname=Mangal&LocID=32&pubdate=11/07/2022.{{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  17. ↑ https://govtpressmp.nic.in/pdf/extra/2023-05-10-Ex-151.pdf [ bare URL PDF ]
  18. ↑ "Ranganathananda Award" (PDF). sriramakrishna.org. Archived from the original (PDF) on 24 February 2015. Retrieved 16 May 2015.
  19. ↑ "Calcutta Story". Telegraphindia.com. 1 September 2014. Archived from the original on 6 September 2014. Retrieved 17 October 2014.
  20. ↑ "vinayak-lohani-wins-telegraph-education-foundation's-certificate-honour". alumnilive.iimcal.ac.in. Archived from the original on 4 December 2014. Retrieved 17 October 2014.
  21. ↑ "IIMC Distinguished Alumnus 2011 Awardees". IIMC. Archived from the original on 6 November 2013. Retrieved 4 November 2013.
  22. ↑ "Young Indian Leaders". IBN. Archived from the original on 24 August 2012. Retrieved 4 November 2013.
  23. ↑ "Sanskriti Award for 2011 held in New Delhi". The Times of India . 25 November 2011. Archived from the original on 5 November 2013. Retrieved 4 November 2013.
  24. ↑ "Sanskriti Award for 2011 Conferred". Hindustan Times. 18 November 2011. Archived from the original on 12 November 2013. Retrieved 4 November 2013.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.