Jigyasa Mishra

In a village where water is scarce and the land is unforgiving, Sundaram Verma found a way to grow trees using only one litre of water per plant. His simple method has helped over 60,000 trees survive drought — and inspired farmers across India to rethink how change takes root.

“What would we do, seeing them in pain like this, how can we eat and stay at peace? So we decided to mortgage our gold jewellery to help them.”