Transforming disease-ridden hamlets into sparkling model villages
Theoretical Physicist
Has proved that pioneering scientific thinking and world-class research is still happening in India.
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Electrical engineer
Empowering rural India through telecom and computer technology
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Entrepreneur
Giving traditional handlooms and handicrafts contemporary relevance
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Doctors
Creating an internationally acclaimed and adopted model for drastically reducing child mortality in backward rural areas
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Governor
A rare example of humility, ethical conduct and scholarship in public life
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Civil Servant
Creating a successful model for checking female foeticide, running a district that is a model of efficient governance
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Politician
Ensuring that the UPA gives rural development high priority, and that NREGs makes history
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Spiritual Leader
Using his spiritual influence to engage rural folks in large-scale environmental, anti-pollution projects
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Development Professional
Recruiting the best professional talent to work on a wide range of remarkably profitable rural livelihood promotion projects that have transformed the lives of nearly 70,000 families
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Filmmaker
Making films that successfully challenge the tired Bollywood box-office formula, yet captivate audiences.
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Biological Scientist
Making the National Centre for Biological Sciences, which he set up, a world-class institution
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Campaigner Against Communalism
Fearless crusader against communalism in Gujarat. Has paid a heavy price for his outspoken activism.
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Civil Servant
A quiet, low-key force in the bureaucracy
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Lawyer
Forced Delhi's educational bureaucracy and private schools to recognise the rights of poor children
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Educationist
Leads a huge effort to improve the quality of primary education in government schools
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Social Reformer
Leads a nationwide crusade to abolish the dehumanising practice of manual scavenging
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Diplomat
Winning Pakistan's trust, and keeping communication channels open, even in difficult times
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Economist
His survey of Indian Muslims has offered both a challenge and critique to policy, showing up its gross inadequacies and spurring it to more focused action
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Editor, EPW
Runs a magazine that has set the agenda for intellectual debate, government policies for nearly 60 years
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human rights lawyer
Fighting for the rights of the marginalised all over India, exposing state abuses
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Development Economist
His incisive work on hunger, child malnutrition and other issues has brought the Other India into intellectual and policy focus
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Historian
A leader among social scientists, cutting across disciplines. Uses history to counter communal propaganda, modern myths.
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Actor
Among the New Generation of actors, his ability to set every role on a slow, crackling flame has set new standards of excellence
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Journalist
Putting rural India and the farmers' crisis firmly on the national and media agenda
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The Alternative power list
Thinking change in India is a thankless task. A few who are sticking it out for the greater common good.
Vinod Mehta
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Three decades ago, when Joe Madiath was just an angry 21-year-old college Marxist spearheading a team of volunteers from Madras in cyclone relief work in Orissa, he noticed the absence of sanitation systems and the resulting mire of disease. When the relief work panned out, he stayed on to do something about it. Water contamination because of open defecation is still responsible for 80 per cent of rural disease in India. But as Madiath sees it, a toilet is not simply a safeguard against infection—it is a platform for dignity and social inclusion. Gram Vikas, founded by Madiath in 1978, now works with nearly 2,00,000 people in 559 villages in 17 Orissa districts—building biogas plants, water tanks, pipelines, toilets and complete sanitation systems. "If cities cannot contain any more people rushing there, we must create a threshold quality of life in the villages—or the cities will become unlivable too," says Madiath. But Gram Vikas needs one pledge—before a project is initiated in a village, every single household must agree to participate and contribute their labour and resources to a shared corpus, thus making them the agents of their own salvation.