Winner's Name: Dr. Norbert Peabody

Award Year: 2020

Location: UK

He is Ph.D in Anthropology from Harvard University in 1992. He is working on a reissue of James Tod's Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan based on the two-volume first edition published in 1829, which will restore to the text all its original engravings, maps, charts, and appendices with special focus on Mewar. This reissue is being done to celebrate the bicentenary in 2023 of the Royal Asiatic Society (RAS), where Tod was the first Librarian and to which he bequeathed his collection of manuscripts and art work, much of it from Mewar. The reissue will be co-published by Yale University Press and the RAS in the run-up to this anniversary. Integral to this reissue will be a third 'Companion Volume', which will consist of four essays on Tod, comprehensive annotations to the text, additional appendices, and paintings and water colours from the Tod collection. In this companion volume he is hoping to reproduce all the known paintings of Tod most of which come from Mewar.

Winner's Name: Mr. Raj Chengappa

Award Year: 2020

Location: Noida

A journalist of over 40 years standing, he is currently the Group Editorial Director (Publishing) of the India Today Group and Editor of India Today magazine. He spearheaded the re-imagining and re-launching of India Today magazine when he re-joined the Group in June 2015 after serving as the Editor-in-Chief of The Tribune Group of Newspapers for five years. The revamped India Today magazine emphatically reiterated the publication’s dominant position in the market with the 2019 Indian Readership Survey putting the readership of the English edition of India Today at 9.24 million making it the most widely read and respected publication in the country. Under his leadership, India Today continues to chronicle without fear or favour the trials, tribulations, upheavals and revolutions that keep our great democracy and country always on the move. He has also authored the best-selling book titled ‘Weapons of Peace: The Secret Story of India’s Quest to be a Nuclear Power’ that chronicles India’s nuclear weapons history.

Winner's Name: Mr. Manhar Udhas

Award Year: 2020

Location: Mumbai

He has subsequently worked with many composers in the film world and has lent his voice to many songs. He has sung in more than 450 Hindi films in many languages including Gujarati, Hindi, Bhojpuri, Oodia, Punjabi, Bengali. The albums are focused on spreading the message that all humans, irrespective of their caste, creed, religion and colour are equal. He has effectively employed his music with meaningful songs and gazals to establish peace and harmony not only in Indian society but also across the world.

Winner's Name: Mr. Devilal Dhakar

Award Year: 2020

Location: Rajasthan

He is an exceptional man who despite being physically challenged turned a small initiative into a 'Green Revolution'. He was a teacher in the Government School of Barundani Panchayat of Bhilwara. Nearby his school at Dhabhai Ki Jhunpadiyan there is a crematorium where at the time of any funeral people attending the funeral would come and sit inside the Government School to escape the scorching sun in summers. This gave him the idea to create an environment of a plantation and trees to protect people from the intense heat. In 2016 he was transferred from the Dhanbhai Ki Jhunpadiyan Government School to another location. Due to this transfer he was unable to visit Dhanbhai Ki Jhunpadiyan for a long time and many of the saplings he had planted there had withered and died. He was very saddened by this and resolved that in the future he would endeavour to continue looking after his plantations personally. At present Mr. Dhakar has successfully planted more than 5000 trees which he has registered and mapped so they can be properly cared for.

Winner's Name: Ms. Purnota Dutta Bahl

Award Year: 2020

Location: Mumbai

She is the Founder and CEO, Cuddles Foundation, Mumbai, began her journey as a social entrepreneur 6 years ago. She graduated from ISB and spent close to 11 years in corporate India, managing and heading marketing for brands like Hindustan Times and Shaadi.com, before a visit to Tata Memorial Hospital in Mumbai changed her life forever. More than 50,000 children are diagnosed with cancer every year in India and 40 per cent of them malnourished at diagnosis. “8 out of 10 don’t survive because of malnourishment,” she points out. She quit her flourishing career, worked with Senior Oncologists at Tata Memorial and developed a blueprint for Cuddles Foundation that would go on to fight childhood cancer with food and nutrition. Because, food has the power to heal. Today Cuddles has partnered with 31 government and charity cancer hospitals across 20 cities in the country, conducting over 1.5 lakh treatment counsels every year. Looking back at her journey with satisfaction, Purnota says Cuddles needs to be there in more hospitals in the times to come.

Winner's Name: Prof. Neeraj Sharma

Award Year: 2020

Location: Rajasthan

He received his Acharya Degree from the Rajasthan Sanskrit University, Jaipur and and D.Litt. Degree on Sanskrit Krishi Shastra from the University of Rajasthan, Jaipur. He has been working as Professor and Head in the Department of Sanskrit at Mohanlal Sukhadia University, Udaipur. Prof. Sharma has done specialised research on Sanskrit Bhakti Literature of Rajasthan, Vedic Agriculture - Shastra Tradition and Indian Values in the field of sustainable development. He has written and published many important research papers on ancient wisdom, tradition and has delivered many lectures on Indian thought and its contribution to the world at large. As founder director, he established traditional Ved Vidyalaya in Alwar, Rajasthan for the propagation of oral Vedic chanting of rare shakhas of four Vedas. He established Anand-Arogya Centre to promote and preserve the spiritual knowledge tradition and well-being in Universities with special emphasis on the people of Udaipur.

Winner's Name: Dr. Jagdish Narayan Vijay

Award Year: 2020

Location: Rajasthan

He is working in Jagadguru Ramanandacharya Rajasthan Sanskrit University, Jaipur. His research papers have been published in the research journal Vayam by Sanskrit University and he has contributed to Jyotapatti, an important book based on mathematics astrology. On Sanskrit day in 2019, the Government of Rajasthan awarded Dr. Vijay for his outstanding work to perpetuate Vedic culture, ancient scriptures and rituals.

Winner's Name: Mr. Dadarao Bilhore

Award Year: 2020

Location: Mumbai

He is known as the 'Pothole Dada of Mumbai'. He comes from Mumbai and started on his mission to repair potholes in and around Mumbai in August 2015. He has now filled over 554 potholes. In July 2015, a terrible accident propelled Mr. Bilhore to do something about the excessive number of potholes in the roads. It wasn’t just his son’s death but similar cases that bothered him; an accident of a mother daughter duo in Ambernath and a Bandra couple where the wife died after falling off the vehicle due to a pothole. He says, “I have lost my son, and I don’t want anyone else to lose a loved one”. He says “It is a tribute to my son. Whenever I fill one pothole, I feel I have saved someone. My son did not return home alive, but somebody else’s son will return home safely.”