Founded by by Zakia Soman and Noorjahan Safia Niaz in 2007 in Mumbai, this autonomous organisation fights for the rights of Muslim women. It was at the forefront of the demand to ban the practice of Triple Talaq and has campaigned for implementation of the recommendations of the Sachar Committee Report. Earlier, BMMA conducted a study of Muslim women’s views on reforms in Muslim Personal Law — ‘Seeking Justice Within the Family’ — across 10 States and found that an overwhelming 82 per cent of the over 4,000 women surveyed had no property in their name; 78 per cent were homemakers with no income of their own; and 92 per cent had no idea about Muslim Personal Law. It released a draft on June 23, 2014 called ‘Muslim Marriage and Divorce Act’ recommending that polygamy be made illegal in Muslim Personal Law. BMMA has also worked for Hindu women in several cases. It has backed Hindu women in their fight to seek entry into the Shani Shingnapur temple in Ahmednagar, Maharashtra.
Photo: Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan
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Sridhar Vembu: His company, Zoho, competes with the likes of Microsoft, Google and Salesforce with its SaaS products, which are used by over 30 million customers. Zoho’s products are made not just by top engineers but by people from economically poor backgrounds
Photo: Sridhar Vembu
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A not-for-profit organisation, Ekam was started in 2007 by Dr Sailakshmi Balijepalli, a paediatrician, to improve the public healthcare system and lower child and maternal mortality. It partners with government agencies to upgrade newborn-care units in government hospitals, enable health checks of mothers and children, and help in appointment of nurses in government hospitals. Its interventions are sustainable and involve multiple stakeholders such as public health bodies, government hospitals, private hospitals, corporate groups, health professionals and the community. Ekam has screened 80,000 children so far and has supplied drugs worth ₹2 crore, lab equipment, manpower, and secondary- and tertiary-care support to hospitals.
Photo: Ekam Foundation
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This technology-based service is arguably India’s first comprehensive mass-scale emergency response mechanism. It has changed the way emergencies are handled in the country, using a common number, 108, much like the 911 service in the US. The 108 service, a brainchild of the now-disgraced B Ramalinga Raju (founder of Satyam Computer Services), has saved thousands of lives and attends to medical, fire and crime calls. A caller in distress or a passer-by need not worry about explaining the location of an incident. The GIS-based technology automatically detects the location, distributes the call details to relevant people and deputes the nearest ambulance in the fleet. Backed by a technology backbone, EMRI services were flagged off in April 2005 with a small fleet of 30 ambulances in 50 towns. A shot in the arm for EMRI was the State Government’s willingness to contribute 95 per cent of the funding for the public-private initiative. After the Satyam scam the GVK group stepped in to fill in the gap. Satyam’s new owner, Tech Mahindra, continues to provide technological support to the company.
Photo: GVK Emergency Management and Research Institute
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This Pune-based NGO was founded by Neelkanth Mishra in December 2013 to promote entrepreneurship in inland fisheries, as an alternative for those otherwise dependent solely on rain-fed agriculture. It aims to bring together stakeholders, local governments and organisations, technical experts, policy analysts and advocates, and natural resource managers to “science-farm” together. It also provides small and marginal farmers access to credit, markets and formal institutions. CAL Jaljeevika works in Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra to strengthen fisheries cooperatives, fisheries-related farmer-producer organisations, and women’s self-help groups. It introduces farmers to the entire fisheries value chain, from seed production and net-making to sales and marketing.
Photo: Centre for Aquatic Livelihood – Jaljeevika
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CIAL is the first greenfield airport in India built under the unique PPP mode. It is also the first airport in the world that operates on solar power. The 12 MWp solar power plant comprising 46,150 solar panels laid across 45 acres near the cargo complex produces 60,000 units of electricity every day, sufficient to meet the power requirements. Originally expected to cost over ₹1,000 crore to build, this international airport finally cost less than ₹250 crore, owing to indigenous design. The project was implemented with the support of 18,000 shareholders from 29 countries and delivered on time thanks to a unique rehabilitation package which later became a case study for World Bank. It recorded a Profit After Tax (PAT) of ₹179.45 crore on a turnover of ₹669 crore in FY17. CIAL is now a case study for various B-Schools brainstorming on managerial issues related to corporate leadership and ethics. Government is expected to lean on CIAL and its experience as it rolls out its UDAN scheme which requires cost-efficient airports to be built in rural India.
Photo: Cochin International Airport
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EESL is a joint venture of public sector undertakings controlled by the Ministry of Power. Set up in 2010, the company was tasked with creating and sustaining markets for energy efficiency in the country. It has risen to prominence under the current government. Since 2014, EESL has been implementing UJALA (Unnat Jyoti by Affordable LEDs for All), the world’s largest zero-subsidy domestic LED bulb programme. Over 28.85 crore LED bulbs have been distributed as of mid-February and this has led to a saving of 37 billion kWh of energy annually. In value terms the saving amounts to ₹14,989 crore. In addition, a peak demand of 7,502 MW has been avoided and 3.03 tonnes of carbon dioxide have been reduced per annum. EESL is looking at electric vehicles as the next big step towards improving energy efficiency in India. It recently floated the world's largest tender for electric vehicles.