Civil Society Human Rights KVP
Mr. A K Parashar
Anil Kumar Parashar joined National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) in the year 1993 with Justice Shri Ranganath Misra, the first Chairperson of NHRC. Thereafter, he has served NHRC in various capacities like Assistant Registrar (Law), Deputy Registrar (Law) and Joint Registrar (Law). During this period, he has worked a lot towards sensitization of the common man regarding the human rights issues and the functioning of the National Human Rights Commission of India. He has followed up with various authorities and the complainants and made sure that compensation is recommended in established cases of violation of human rights and the offenders are prosecuted as per law. He is the Focal Point for Human Rights Defenders in NHRC. As the Focal Point for HRDs he has visited every nook and corner of the country and interacted with the grass-root functionaries and people at the village level. His intervention has provided relief in many cases. He believes that providing impetus to the HRDs will go a long way in strengthening the human rights regime in the country. He has also contributed in organizing Human Rights workshops and seminars throughout the country. He has contributed in various publications of NHRC. His articles have been published in many renowned journals. He has represented NHRC in various capacities and before various forums throughout the world. Mr. Parashar's contribution to NHRC and in sensitization on human rights issues can be gauged from the fact that the Commission, which started with 498 complaints in the year 1993-94, is now receiving more than 1 lakhs complaints in a year. The number of cases where relief has been recommended by the Commission has also seen exponential growth since inception.
Courage of Conviction KVP
Mr. Maheshwar Peri
Mr.Maheshwer Peri, an investment banker, went on to become the publisher of Outlook. He turned an entrepreneur in 2009, starting his own publishing venture, Pathfinder Publishing, which publishes Careers360 - a complete career magazine which targets the 17-24 year old students. Mr. Peri loves guiding students and has created the largest education portals across six verticals in India to advise/counsel and hand hold students and help them achieve their career goals. From his Outlook days, he started fighting against the rot within the education system. In 2008, he wrote a column exposing the faults in the system of educational institutions in Outlook that talked about how the business of education was becoming poisonous for students, and the problem of falsified data and bogus foreign tie-ups. He continued this fight at Career 360, where he has taken up the task of vetting the institutions that teenagers seek to join. Mr. Peri and his colleagues are fighting against IIPM, a Delhi based Institute with 18 centers. In 2009, he published an article 'IIPM - Best only in claims'. He has been drawn into a costly and lengthy battle, but has the indignation of someone who is convinced he is right. Recently Uttarakhand court quashed IIPM's case against Careers360 which said the magazine was publishing defamatory news against them. He feels that corruption is rampant in the education sector because there is no stamina from the common man or even from big organizations to fight these cases to the end. The corrupt have been going around filing cases and settling them and ensuring that no one opens their mouth and nobody dares to go against their wishes A strong stand by someone who has information, access, power and intelligence can put an end to all this.. Mr. Peri, with his grit and determination, is ready to bell the cat.
Courage of Conviction KVP
Dr. Indu Choudhary
Dr. Indu Choudhary is an Assistant Professor in the Department of English at Banaras Hindu University (BHU), Varanasi. Being a scheduled Caste, she was subjected to a lot of atrocities from the day she joined BHU. She was not allowed to stay in the BHU guest house, where all her counterparts were staying. After much persuasion she was allowed to stay but had to pay more rent than the other General Category residents and when she protested the rates were increased furthermore. Dr. Choudhary made a representation to the VC, however the warden did not wait for the VC's reply and broke open the guestroom, without any prior notice, and stripped the accommodation of all her belongings. No official of BHU was ready to talk on the issue. As a result Dr. Choudhary spent the entire night on the roads of BHU. It was only after the media took cognizance of the issue that she was restored back to her room next evening. She decided to fight till end against this evil of the society because of which her merit and quality was of no consequence before an upper caste warden. Thanks to her efforts several cases of atrocities on SC/ST were reported in BHU. She made sure that these were brought to the knowledge of higher authorities. In this connection a Special Report has been submitted to Hon'ble President of India by the NCSC, New Delhi. Two warrants have been issued against Vice-Chancellor BHU by NCSC. Once he got a stay letter from Honourable High Court of Allahabad, and the latest hearing at NCSC was scheduled on 28.10.2013-14. Dr. Choudhary has ever since taken to raising her voice against all sorts of odds together with doctors, engineers, scientists, and other officersl. She believes that her battle is not for wealth or power but for the reclamation of human personality.
KarmaVeer Puraskaar For Communal Hormany
Mr. Hemant Kumar Yadav
A soul dedicated & committed towards establishing communal brotherhood & harmony, Hemant is an example to be emulated by the youth of today. Born in a small village in Varansi, he is a person marked by simplicity & easy going attitude, He has been working tirelessly since 2002 to promote Hindu-muslim unity & communal harmony. To rouse the feelings of patriotism and communal harmony in the youth, he organised and led a bicycle expedition from Varanasi to Delhi on the 150th anniversary of the revolt of 1857. He also covered the distance between Sriperambadur and Kanyakumari on bicycle to promote the cause of national unity and harmony. He travelled by bicycle from Varanasi to Kolkata to spread the message of eco peace on the occassion of environment day to establish harmony between men and environment. Hemant has organised more than 100 communal harmony rallies and seminars. working for issues like environment and terrorism, He invited priests from all the religions to his marriage ceremony and paid regards to all religions on his marriage invitation card, sending message of equality of all religions, along with environmental conservation. To recognize the good work done by Hemant, youth programs and Sports Ministry awarded him with Indira Gandhi NSS award of year 2004-05 and National Youth Award of year 2006-07. He was given KaramVeerChakra jointly by UNV INDIA & iCONGO for working for the causes of youth development, environmental conservation, peace keeping and communal harmony through self service. Appreciating his work, we hope that he will keep on working lifetime for communal harmony, conservation of the environment and world peace.
Sports Person for change KVP
Ms. Deepa Malik
Deepa Malik is an inspiration for people from all walks of life. Imagining a life with chest-below paralysis after 30 years of being on your own legs is disheartening to anybody, but Deepa Malik found her victory in her disability. She started her sports career at the age of 36 when most people are just settling down into complacency. She is the first ever sportswoman to represent the country at International level in disability section and the first paraplegic Indian woman biker, swimmer, car rallyist, entrepreneur and motivational speaker. She has devoted her life to the cause of women empowerment and inclusion and is constantly working towards changing age-old policies of para-sports to bring it at par with other sports. She has been working on a mission called "Ability Beyond Disability", with an aim to change the society's stereotypical image of wheelchair users and to sensitize the society towards people with disability. She has succeeded so far in changing the policies for the physically-challenged in Maharashtra and Haryana. She has been making motivational speeches in several institutes to inspire others and derives pride on being able to change people's perspective through her life story. She holds four Limca world records for adventure like swimming across river Yamuna against the current and driving across 9 high altitude passes on highest motorable roads of Leh Ladakh. Her Arjuna Award in the severely handicapped category is a proof of her determination towards motivating both abled and differently-abled to move ahead in life with courage and hope.. She has won numerous awards and accolades in various national as well as international sporting events and is currently training for 2014 Asian Games. She believes "The people who make a difference to the society come from among us. If we decide to do away with discrimination, our country will rise socially and also economically.
Sports Person KVP
Mr. Pradeep Raj
Pradeep Raj is an International Table Tennis Player ,in Paralympics Sports. When an infant ,he was affected by Polio in both legs and had 62% disability. But his limited ability only strengthened his spirit. Today he is the General Secretary of Association for Disabled People and Founder, Promoter and Organizer of Disabled Cricket Association, India. He can now can walk normally without any assistance. His name had been recommended to be included in the Steering Committee on Youth Affairs & Sports for the 12th Five Year Plan. He participated in State consultations on Working Draft for Rights of persons with Disability Act and in National meeting for amendment on Rights of persons with disability Act, 1995. He has been involved with several advocacy campaigns that have led to the realization of rights of persons with disabilities on several counts such as for a new disability law based on UNCRPD, inclusion of disabled children in the Right to Education Act etc. However, the campaign that he was deeply involved with is the advocacy to root out corruption from disability sports in India and to ensure the rights of disabled sportspersons. He was the leading force of DRG in this campaign and also conducted online protests in their interest.. This ensured the participation of genuine disabled sportspersons in the recently concluded Commonwealth Games in New Delhi in 2010. He has also been involved in providing disabled people with vocational training and self-employment opportunities; spreading awareness about various disabilities and motivating them to participate in paralympics. A role model for all the disabled people, he was honored with the National Youth Award, IBN 7 Super Idol Awards 2010, NCPEDP Shell Helen Keller Award, 2011, the national youth award by President of India in 2013-14. and many others. He is an inspiration for people from all spheres of life.
Social Entrepreneur KVP
Mr. Arunachalam Muruganantham
Arunachalam Muruganantham is a social entrepreneur, who was touched by the untold miseries of the marginalized women community and decided to give them a better life. A native poor from South India, he reengineered the world's first low-cost machine to produce sanitary towels. Currently 1200 machines made by his start-up company, Jayaashree Industries, are installed across 25 states of India. This social entrepreneur sells the £2,600 machines directly to rural women through the support of bank loans and not-for-profit organizations. With his decentralized model of business activity, Muruganantham is creating a self-sustainable ecosystem for SHGs run by rural women. This model involves women as participants in complete product life-cycles, not only as users, but also as technology designers, manufacturers, and marketing persons. Further, these women are the owners of their business. This has lead to increased dignity for rural women, and has helped them in reforming some of the dogmatic rules in their society. For many rural women who had virtually no formal contact with the outside world, this is a great leap forward. His efforts have provided direct employment to 9500 rural women and more than 4.2 million women have shifted from using unhygienic rag cloth to hygienic sanitary napkin. A documentary film on Muruganantham life story was released in the USA and he is frequently invited to the IITs, IIMs and other prestigious educational institutes in India for guest lectures. Muruganantham's vision is to make India a 100% sanitary napkin using country, from current level of less than 5% in rural areas.
