THE AWARD WINNERS

Popatrao Baguji Pawar   (born 1960) is the farmer   sarpanch   of   Hiware Bazar , a   gram panchayat   in   Ahmednagar district   of   Maharashtra   India .   He was the only post graduate in the village. In 2020, he received the   Padma Shri   honor from the   Government of India   for his contribution in the field of social work. He is the Executive Director of Maharashtra state government's Model Village program. He is credited to have transformed it from an impoverished village into a model of development that the government of Maharashtra wishes to implement across the state. Pawar led Hiware Bazar's transformation from a drought- prone village to a green and prosperous model village, thus successfully reproducing Anna Hazare's Ralegaon Siddhi model of village development. He featured in an India Today cover story as the person who demonstrated how rural water re...

Damayanti Beshra  is a  Santali  author and  Adivasi  researcher. She is known for literature of Santali language.   In 2020 she was honored by  Padma Shri  for her remarkable contribution to Santali literature. She was awarded the  Sahitya Akademi Award  in 2009. She also publishes the first women's magazine in Santali language called  Karam Dar . She is the first female writer in the language to author and publish an anthology of poems ‘Jiwi Jharna’ in 1994. [3]  She was awarded the  Padma Shri  in 2020. 2009: Awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award in 2009.  2020:  Received Padma Shri for her remarkable contribution to Santali literature.

  Digambar Behera  (born 1953)  is a doctor from  Cuttack ,  Odisha , India. His specialization is in pulmonary diseases. In 2020, he received the  Padma Shri  honor from the  Government of India  for his contribution to the field of medicine. Behera completed  MBBS  in 1978 from  SCB Medical College  and MD in 1981 from  Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research  (PGI),  Chandigarh . In 1978, Behera joined the Department of Medicine at the PGI as a junior resident. He teaches the department of pulmonary medicine as a senior professor since 2000. He became the Head of the Department of Pulmonary Medicine in 2014 and the Dean of the Pulmonary Research Department in 2017 with two years extension from the Union Ministry. In 2011, he became the director of PGI. He is the chairman of the National Tuberculosis Elimination Program and of some divisions under the Indian Tuberculosis Res...

  Sushovan Banerje e  aka  One Rupee Doctor  is an Indian  doctor  and  politician . He is known for treating needy people for just a rupee. In 1984, he was the MLA of Bolpur. In 2020, he was awarded the  Padma Shri  by the Indian Government for his contribution on the field of medicine. Banerjee is from  Bolpur ,  West Bengal . He did his graduation from  R. G. Kar Medical College and Hospital  and did his PG degree in Pathology from  Calcutta University . Then he moved to London for a diploma in Haematology. Banerjee had contested on an  Indian National Congress  ticket in 1984 and was elected as the member of the  West Bengal Legislative Assembly  from Bolpur. Since 1963 he is treating poor patients for just One Rupee. In 2020 he held his name in the  Guinness World Records  for treating the maximum number of patients in his lifetime.  In the same year, awarded the  Padma Shr...

  Air Marshal   Padma Bandopadhyay ,  PVSM ,  AVSM ,  VSM , PHS (born 4 November 1944) is a decorated former  flight surgeon  in the  Indian Air Force . She was the first woman to be promoted to the rank of  Air Marshal  in the  Indian Air Force . She is the second woman in the  Indian Armed Forces  to be promoted to a  three-star rank , after Surgeon  Vice Admiral   Punita Arora . Early Life Bandopadhyay was born as Padmavathy Swaminathan on 4 November 1944  at  Tirupathi ,  Andhra Pradesh  into a  Tamil  speaking  Iyer  family. When Padma was four or five years old, her mother contracted  tuberculosis  and eventually became bedridden. Therefore, medical issues began occupying Padma's mind space since the time she was very young, and she also became her mother's primary caregiver at a relatively young age. In addition, her neighbor in the  Gole Market ...

  Gloria Arieira  (also known as  Brahmacharini Gloria Arieira ) is a Brazilian Sanskrit scholar and Vedanta teacher. She was awarded the  Padma Shri , India's fourth highest civilian award in 2020. She founded Vidya Mandir Centro de Estudos de Vedanta e Sânscrito in Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro,  Brazil  which teaches Advaita Vedanta and Sanskrit in Portuguese language.