Lede

Krishnan Mahadevan runs Iyer Idly in Bengaluru with his mother Uma. Established by his father in 2001, it sold only idli and chutney for almost two decades.

Engineer Nellikkuzhi Kuriakkose Kurian left his business in Dubai to create Mango Meadows Agriculture Pleasure Land, a human-made biodiversity park and homestay

For her selfless and immense hard work, Prabhaben Shah from Daman was awarded India’s fourth-highest civilian award, Padma Shri in January 2022.

Sulochana and Niraj Beru began the Beru Matimand Pratishthan to care for patients with mental disabilities after watching their own son suffer due to a broken system

Manipur-based Maidem Deben Singh’s innovative biomass smokeless stove can cook and dry meat and vegetables, saving hundreds of lives

Jayashree Ratan, founder of Saaisha India Foundation, helps Indian women in the most unique way. She brought together a community of women under the brand name Knitted Knockers to crochet prostheses for women who have undergone mastectomies.

An environment hero at age 8, Thaaragai Arathana from Chennai started diving when she was just 5 years old. She now fishes out plastic waste from the ocean to conserve marine life.

Known as the 'Nightingale of India', Bharat Ratna Lata Mangeshkar passed away in 6 February in Mumbai, at the age of 92. She sang over 27,000 songs in a seven-decade career.

Centred in Jamkhed village in Ahmednagar district, and extended to other villages in neighbouring districts, Dr Mabelle Arole and Dr Rajanikant Arole's Comprehensive Rural Health Project (CRHP) remains the gold standard of what it means to provide community-based primary healthcare to rural India.

Dr Neelam Gupta runs A Ray of Hope (AROH) Foundation in Odisha, Jharkhand and Bihar. She speaks of what it takes to venture into dangerous territories to rehabilitate and empower youths.