Amla Ruia
Founder, Aakar Charitable Trust
For Being ‘Water Mother’ to a Hundred Villages
Amla Ruia was born into a spiritual and literary family in which the sense of giving back to the community is strong. In 2003, she founded the Aakar Charitable Trust to address the two issues closest to her heart: education and water. For the first, the trust set up replicable schools from pre-primary to higher secondary in Ramgarh, Rajasthan, with a view to impart high-quality education to villagers at minimum cost.
The trust’s work with water is far more elaborate. It has helped build 200 kunds, or underground water tanks, to provide drinking water in remote areas, where they lack municipal water supply. (25 per cent of the cost was borne by villagers). Ten million litres of water is harvested from the rains in these kunds every year. The trust also built 206 large and medium-scale check dams in 200 villages, transforming over 2.5 lakh lives.
Ruia’s organisation has also done water harvesting in the arid and marginalised areas of Sikar, Jhunjhunu, Bikaner, Alwar, Dausa and Jaipur, in Rajasthan. Here, the check dams have helped the locals greatly and taken them to a new level of prosperity and self-sufficiency.
Ruia has now started similar projects in Bihar and Madhya Pradesh. Apart from increasing the cultivability of land, these check dams bring in extra animal husbandry income, relieve women of the burden of having to fetch water over long distances, and bring relief from drought and floods. Ruia is lending both nature and culture a new lease of life.
Archana Kapoor
Founder, Radio Mewat
For Giving People a Stronger Voice
Those who think video killed the radio star have never tuned into Radio Mewat. It is through this community radio initiative in Haryana’s Mewat district that Archana Kapoor gives backward communities a chance to speak and be heard. This Delhi-based publisher, filmmaker, author, and activist travelled 70 km into Haryana and launched the project five years ago. While most radio channels in India are commercial, with content that defines easy and constant entertainment, the prime focus of Radio Mewat is to disseminate information that benefits and empowers local residents and to provide a platform for the marginalised sections of society to share its stories. The staff, which consists of 11 full-time reporters, a managerial team and an administrative team, are local residents.
The radio station, which has received two national awards from the Union Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, has been instrumental in reviving the lost cultural and oral traditions of the Meos, local Sufi singers who have been reciting the Mahabharata. Kapoor believes the key reason why the channel has become “the voice of the vulnerable" is because radio allows people to maintain anonymity and still have a wide and direct reach. The NGO shook up the local bodies for funds and power supply, to re-awaken the community’s consciousness.
Basanti Devi
Environmentalist
For Fighting for ‘Jal, Jungle, Jameen’
In a country where rivers are worshipped, floods cannot be averted and urban thirst persists, women like Basanti Devi also live. This child widow-turned-social activist has educated women woodcutters in Uttarakhand on the dangers of deforestation, and prevented the Kosi from drying up. Basanti behen, as she is known, convinced the women in the valley to fight opposition from men and forest guards and form community-based organisations for forest conservation. Gradually, the women refrained from cutting live wood, especially oak. As a result, in the last couple of years, the government has begun active afforestation in the area. The sparse pine forests are now being replaced by broad-leaved trees; the forest floor has fresh saplings of rhododendron, oak and myrica nagi. Additionally, the seasonal springs at Rauliyan and Kaphadi that used to dry up in the summer, have been perennial since some years.
Bhakti Sharma
Open Water Swimmer
For Conquering the High Seas
Till sometime ago, braving snowy winds to scale high peaks was a big deal. Men in gum boots, clutching walking poles, suitably capped and gloved, came across as fearless. Then, Bhakti Sharma happened. The 26-year-old open water swimmer casually straps on a swimsuit and soaks herself in the chilly waters of the Arctic. In January 2015, she broke the world record set by British open water swimming champion Lewis Pugh by swimming the longest (2.28km) in the freezing waters (1 degree Celsius) of Antarctica. She holds the distinction of being the youngest female swimmer in the world to swim in all five oceans and seven seas. In 2006, at the age of 16, she crossed the English Channel in 13 hours and 55 minutes from Shakespeare Beach, Dover England to Calais, France. And, in 2007, she crossed the Strait Of Gibraltar, Mediterranean Sea at Tarifa, Spain in five hours and 13 minutes. In 2011, she was honoured with the Tenzing Norgay National Adventure Award.
Born in Mumbai and brought up in Udaipur, Rajasthan, this fearless swimmer also holds a Master’s degree from Symbiosis International University in Communications Management. “There's nothing that cannot be conquered," she says.
Chandrima Shaha
Director, National Institute of Immunology
For Appreciating the Artistry of Science
Nobody knows how it will end, and just as few know how it all started. In her twenties, Chandrima Shaha decided to dedicate her life to the research of cells, the first and most crucial life form. At the inception of her career, when there were a handful of Indian women in science, she initiated a research programme to understand the mechanisms of cellular defence and modalities of cell death. The major impact of Shaha’s work has been insights into the intricacies of cell death processes in various model organisms and the development of therapeutic purposes from the findings. She did her doctoral research at the Indian Institute of Chemical Biology, Kolkata. Subsequently, she joined the University of Kansas Medical Centre as a Ford Foundation Fellow followed by a post-doctoral stint at the Population Council, New York.
Shaha, who has served as a member of multiple international committees, has instituted Science Setu, a science and society programme that enables students to come and learn at the National Institute of Immunology and allows its faculty to go to colleges and teach.
Durga Bai
Gond Painter
For Using Art to Tell Stories
She isn’t schooled in feminism. Yet, Durga Bai's Gond paintings subvert gender roles and offer a refreshing twist to traditional folktales. She paints the power of local goddesses like Ratmaimurkhuri, sentinel of the night; Maharalin Mata, the guardian against ghouls; and Budi Mai, the patroness of the harvest. While other Gond artists paint people and birds, Durga Bai rethinks myth and folklore. This resident of Bhopal has done illustrations for Sultana’s Dream, a feminist science fiction novel by Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain. Durga Bai's painting River Narmada fetched `1,51,200 at the No-Reserve Folk & Tribal Art auction held on storyltd.com in 2014. In 2008, her illustrations for the children’s book The Night Life of Trees by Tara Publishing won her the Bologna Ragazzi Award in Italy.
As a child, the artist learnt digna—a traditional art of painting along the walls of houses. "My grandmother and mother started teaching me about Gond art when I was six. They are my devis,” says Durga. Through her art, Durga Bai feels she is doing her bit for women empowerment.
Mamta Singh
IGP-South Range, Rewari, Haryana
For Standing Up for Human Rights
The violence reported in the papers and the television, and the increasing law and order problems in small towns would disturb Mamta Singh, when she was still in school. The feeling of helplessness grew on her; she was determined to do away with it. So, in 1996, Singh joined the Indian Police Services. Leaving her three children at home, the officer spent months fighting human-rights violations in the Naxal-infested areas of Chhattisgarh and West Bengal. Singh has carried out investigations in human rights violations during Operation Anaconda by CRPF in the Saranda forests of Jharkhand.
In 2012, she was awarded the President’s Police Medal for introducing intelligent jail reforms during her tenure as DIG (Investigation) with the National Human Rights Commission. Today, as IGP, South Range, in Rewari, Haryana, she focuses on better police-public relations. Singh was one of the members of the drafting committee on the National Policy on Prison Reforms and Correctional Administration, constituted by the Union Home Ministry in 2007. She is also associated as honorary advisor with the Reach Out Foundation, which works for the elimination of discrimination, especially on ethnic and regional grounds. “The system should fight for human rights,” she says, and feels the police have to adopt inclusive welfare as their dharma.
Mehvish Mushtaq
Founder, Dial Kashmir
For Skilful Tapping of Technology
While everybody else was busy trying to restore harmony in Kashmir, Mehvish Mushtaq asked herself what will bring about difference in Kashmir. Technology was the first thing that came to her mind. After her computer science engineering from SSM College of Engineering and Technology, Parihaspora, she took up an online course in android programming from Edureka.in. As a part of this course, she had to develop an android application. That’s when Dial Kashmir happened and Mushtaq decided to develop something that would be useful for the locals. Dial Kashmir is a gateway to the Valley, which provides users extensive information such as addresses, phone numbers and email Ids of various essential and commercial services in various sectors. In addition to that, it also includes other features such as prayer timings, railway timings, pin-codes and ISD codes. What really inspired her to develop this app was the complexity involved in getting the phone numbers of some major organisations. The fact that whenever someone needed a contact number, the process that followed was not so easy, sometimes official sites were broken and sometimes one couldn’t find the number at all, inspired her to develop the app. This alumnus of Presentation Convent School, Srinagar, who did her higher secondary schooling from The Mallinson Girls School is all set to change the way life is lived in Kashmir. About time.
Namita Gautam
Managing Trustee, Sleepwell Foundation
For Championing Social Causes
Corporate Social Responsibility is often confused with charity. “The giving away of excess wealth is not the best way to bring about economic equality, empowering through quality education is,” says Namita Gautam. She is the managing trustee of Sleepwell Foundation, the CSR wing of South East Asia and Oceana’s largest PU foam manufacturer and owner of the Sleepwell bedding brand.
Gautam’s leadership and organisational skills may have been key drivers in the introduction and success of many Sleepwell products but the company’s CSR wing is where her heart lies. Since its inception in 2001, the foundation has been active in four areas: education of the girl child, skill development, cleanliness, and preventive health, through innovative initiatives. The activities taken up independently as well as in association with like-minded organisations include awareness, advocacy and action, and focus on quality and quantity for beneficiaries.
In the past, Gautam has been the national president of FLO, or Ficci Ladies Organisation, which focuses on the empowerment of women. During her tenure, she formed Young Flo, for women under 40. She also got two surveys conducted -- one on the aspirations of girl students in colleges in Delhi-NCR, and the other a comparative study of women working in the service industry in the five metros of Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai and Hyderabad. Currently, she is the chairperson of the Institute Management Committee of the Jijabai ITI for Women, which was adopted by her company under a private-public-partnership with the Government of India in 2009. She is also a member of a special task force on skills and education created by CII, Northern Region.
Pooja Sood
Director, Khoj International Artists’ Association
For Making Art her Craft
Let's create an ecosystem that allows artists to both thrive and fail," says Pooja Sood, who has recently been appointed Director General of Jaipur’s multidisciplinary cultural space, Jawahar Kala Kendra. She feels art is inherently mad and hence it is all the more important to have a method in place, so it reaches where it has to. By envisioning interactive spaces, writing and editing books and guiding art foundations, Sood contributes her cause of choice.
She is the founding member and Director of Khoj International Artists’ Association, an autonomous, not-for-profit society committed to experimentation and exchange in the visual arts space in India. Under her stewardship, Khoj plays a central role in the development of interdisciplinary and contemporary art practice in India and South Asia.
As director of Khoj, Sood has worked actively to build a robust network of experimental spaces across South Asia, resulting in the South Asian Network for the Arts ( SANA).
Since 2009, Sood has been the founding director of ArThinkSouthAsia, an arts management programme for young cultural leaders in south Asia. In its sixth year now, it is dedicated to building a cadre of cultural managers in the region. Sood has served on several international juries, most recently, on the IAPA award of the Institute of Public Art, Shanghai (2014), the Asia Pacific Breweries Signature prize hosted by the Singapore Art Museum (2014-15), and the Korean Art prize, Seoul (2013).
Patricia Narayan
Founder, Sandeepha Restaurants
For Stirring a Soulful Curry
When Patricia Narayan’s marriage failed and her family refused to take her in, she could have either killed herself and her two small kids or she could have fought it out for their sake. Narayan, all of 18 at the time, chose to do the latter. So, she started making pickles, jams and squashes at home. Her humble endeavour was successful and made her economically independent. She took baby steps towards entrepreneurship when she decided to sell coffee, juice and samosas on Marina beach in Chennai. On the first day, Narayan sold a single cup of coffee for 50 paisa. The journey hit a halt with the death of her newlywed daughter Sandeepha. Two years later, she returned to the business even more determined, to earn back what she had lost in spirit. Soon after, she opened her first restaurant after her deceased daughter’s name. In her 30-year-long struggle, Narayan took up several catering contracts in cafeterias, like that of the Slum Clearance Board, Bank of Madura and the National Institute of Port Management after which she forged a partnership with a restaurant in a leading hotel chain in Chennai.
This restaurateur says crisis makes a person sensitive enough to do his or her best to ensure that nobody else goes through what they did. The sight of her daughter’s body lying in the boot of a car is something she can never forget. She now operates an ambulance service in Chennai from Acharapakkam, the spot of her daughter’s accident to Chengalpet. Narayan was FICCI’s ‘Woman Entrepreneur of the Year’ 2013 and her life story is an inspiration to many.
Ritu Biyani
Founder, HighWays Beyond Cancer
For her Determination to Defeat Disease
Cancer is either the beginning of an ending or the beginning of a beginning. For survivor Ritu Biyani, it was the latter. She became the first woman from the Maheshwari marwari community to join the Indian Army in 1981 and first lady paratrooper from the Indian Army Dental Corps in 1984, where she served as a surgeon for 10 years, gaining a deeper insight into the landscape and lifescape of India. In 2000, at the age of 39, when she was detected with breast cancer, Biyani changed as a person. She accepted the disease like any other disease and fought it head on. “I used to like adventure and sports before I became a dental surgeon. Cancer reintroduced me to my old self,” she says.
In 2004, Biyani, with her then 14-year-old daughter Tista, conceptualised and pioneered the Project Highways, a cancer awareness mission across the country. Biyani’s drive of over 800 workshops across India has made her reach over 2.67 lakh people (women, men and youth). In total, she has driven over 1,57,000 km and interacted with over two lakh people. Her 777 cancer awareness and motivational workshops so far have earned her a mention in the Limca Book of Records. "I'd rather take the road less travelled," says Biyani.
Smriti Nagpal
Founder, Atulyakala
For Empowering the Deaf
Sometimes, words fail us. We then turn to art to find answers and tell our stories. The Smriti Nagpal’s older siblings are hearing impaired and in a world that’s busy finding new and interesting ways to communicate with each other, what are they to do? The 25-year-old, who calls sign language her mother tongue, started Atulyakala in 2013. This is a for-profit social enterprise that is creating opportunities for deaf artists to create and sell products. It makes profit from selling art pieces like bags, mugs, wallets and journals made by hearing-impaired artists. It also undertakes design projects. “It has been estimated that there are between 0.9 million and 14 million hearing-impaired people in India. They need to be able to earn and live with dignity,” she says. In 2013, during her college days in New Delhi, Nagpal was responsible for the hearing-impaired morning bulletin of the Doordarshan Network, where she also interpreted the Republic Day parade in the Indian sign language. This was the first broadcast of its kind in 64 years.
Those who cannot hear us are actually hearing everything, even our silence, she believes.
Thinlas Chorol
Founder, Ladakhi Women’s Travel Company
For Showing the Way to Ladakhi Women
Thinlas Chorol was born in the Takmachik village of Ladakh. She grew up looking after the animals, taking them to the nearby mountains for grazing. As a teenager, she joined the Students’ Educational and Cultural Movement of Ladakh’s (Secmol). Here, she realised that trekking drew thousands of tourists to Ladakh every year.
Knowing the mountains like the back of her hand, she decided to join the party—as a trekking guide. But most of the travel agencies that she approached for work didn’t want a female trekking guide. However, when she did get hired on a freelance basis by a small agency, she noticed that female clients were most comfortable in the company of a lady guide. In 2009, she founded the Ladakhi Women’s Travel Company, the region's first travel agency to be fully owned and run by women that takes bookings from the world over.
Chorol has gained recognition for her writing, primarily on social issues, and her status as an ice hockey player. In 2006, she was part of the team that won the bronze medal in the National Ice Hockey Championship. The following year, she was awarded the ‘Sanjoy Ghosse Ladakh Women Writers’ Award’ by the Charkha Development Communication Network. The ever-smiling Chorol wants women to feel the freedom that the mountains have to offer.
Anyone listening?
Vidhi Singhania
Textile Revivalist
For Reviving an Old Art
The story dates back to a time when Kota was just another town in Rajasthan and hadn’t become the hotbed of engineering aspirants. All it had were Kotah sarees. “When I got married and moved there in 1995, I was excited thinking about all the fabulous sarees that I would be able to gift my family and friends,” reminisces Vidhi Singhania. “But, I found that the craft was dying.” Singhania then took it upon herself to bring the fabric back to life. “It was like reviving a forgotten art,” she says. With persistence and passion, she slowly built a rapport with the weavers -- 3,000 of whom now work with her. She not only pulled a craft community out of abject poverty, but created a market for beautifully embroidered, hand-painted and gold-woven Kotah sarees.