This year Magsaysay Award goes to...

Ashoka fellow Arvind Kejriwal is honored with Ramon Magsaysay award for this year. Have you ever wondered what keeps the social entrepreneurs like him motivated? It's honors like this and recogonition of the changes they brought into the society. The usual suspect, Arvind is a graduate from Indian Institute of Technology. What he did? He used Right to Information act to empower a change among the lifes of poor slum dwellers of delhi. Started his career in Indian Revenue Service. Worst practise and bribery prevalent in tax departement baffled him. He dreamt about bringing reforms in tax department. He started Parivartan, submitted a five point agenda to Tax department to bring in more transparency. Ofcourse people reacted badly against it, later he resorted to Gandhi style satyagraha infront of the tax department. His first success came when the department accepted to implement his reforms. Wow! Later he worked to "stop bribery" in state Electricity department. The Emergent leadership award from Ramon Magsaysay foundation has been awarded to him for his work on taking RTI act to grass root level. RTI act empowers people to see any government records. He used RTI to help people conduct social audit on the government's projects for the upliftment of their area. In the audit in Sundernagari, people have found out corruption to the tune of INR 7 Million by the officials. Thats worst truth to hear.

 

[+] Congrats Arvind, We are proud of you. Link

Read more!