Nileema, Harish do India proud

Nileema Mishra and Harish Hande have done the country proud as they are the two Indians who have been chosen to receive this year's Ramon Magsaysay awards which are considered to be Asia's Nobel Prize.

The Board of Trustees of the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation announced that this year (2011) five individuals and one organization will receive the Ramon Magsaysay awards.

Mishra has been selected for the award in recognition of her "purpose-driven zeal to work tirelessly with villagers in Maharashtra, India, organizing them to successfully address both their aspirations and their adversities through collective action and heightened confidence in their potential to improve their own lives."

Mishra had launched an organisation - Bhagini Nivedita Gramin Vigyan Niketan - in Jalgaon district of Maharashtra in 1995. The organisation works on each issue that women come to them with, be it illness, food or education. Mishra realised that all these issues pertain to poverty and, as such, there is a need to generate employment. The 39-year-old social activist, thus, has empowered the women by training them to produce export-quality quilts.

.

The award has come Hande's way in recognition of his "passionate and pragmatic efforts to put solar power technology in the hands of the poor, through a social enterprise that brings customized, affordable, and sustainable electricity to India's vast rural populace, encouraging the poor to become asset creators."

Hande is a graduate from IIT Kharagpur and has obtained his PhD from the University of Massachusetts. The 44-year-old rural energy entrepreneur established the social enterprise, Solar Electric Light Company (SELCO) in Bangalore in 1995 to provide heating, lighting and cooking solutions based on solar energy.

The other four awardees are: Alternative Indigenous Development Foundation Inc (AIDFI) from the Philippines for "their collective vision, technological innovations, and partnership practices to make appropriate technologies improve the lives and livelihoods of the rural poor in upland Philippine communities and elsewhere in Asia"; Hasanain Juaini from Indonesia for his "holistic, community-based approach to pesantren education in Indonesia, creatively promoting values of gender equality, religious harmony, environmental preservation, individual achievement, and civic engagement among young students and their communities"; Koul Panha from Cambodia for his "determined and courageous leadership of the sustained campaign to build an enlightened, organized and vigilant citizenry who will ensure fair and free elections - as well as demand accountable governance by their elected officials - in Cambodia's nascent democracy"; and Tri Mumpuni from Indonesia for her "determined and collaborative efforts to promote micro hydropower technology, catalyze needed policy changes, and ensure full community participation, in bringing electricity and the fruits of development to the rural areas of Indonesia".

Established in 1957, the Ramon Magsaysay Award is given away in memory and leadership example of the third Philippine President and is given every year to individuals or organisations in Asia. The six 2011 Magsaysay awardees join 284 other laureates who have received the honour to date. This year's Magsaysay Award winners will each receive a certificate, a medallion, and a cash prize at a ceremony to be held on August 31 in the Philippines.