Anshu Gupta and Sanjeev Chaturvedi win Ramon Magsaysay Award

The Board of Trustees of the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation (RMAF) today announced that this year five individuals from India, Laos, Myanmar, and the Philippines will receive Asia’s premier prize, the Ramon Magsaysay Award. Anshu Gupta and Sanjeev Chaturvedi from India are among the 2015 Magsaysay Awardees.

Anshu Gupta,founder of Goonj is being recognized for “his creative vision in transforming the culture of giving in India, his enterprising leadership in treating cloth as a sustainable development resource for the poor, and in reminding the world that true giving always respects and preserves human dignity.” Goonj is a a multi award winning social enterprise focused to work on ignored basic needs like clothing, sanitary pads for village and slum India while changing the dynamics of giving & receiving with dignity.

Ashoka and Schwab Fellow Anshu Gupta and his friends started Goonj 14 years back to address the most basic but ignored need of clothing and the multifaceted role it plays in village India. GOONJ understands the connect between the struggle for the basics of life for the poor and village India getting left behind in the entire development happening in urban India. Using vast quantities of untapped underutilized material lying in urban homes as a powerful resource, GOONJ is trying to address both these critical issues simultaneously without burdening either the giver or the receiver in the process. While GOONJ matches the material with the specific needs of local village communities; going into minute details of climate, age & gender profile, social cultural norms etc, the actual distribution is tied in with the community working on specific development gap areas (in its own area) identified by the community itself (under Cloth for Work initiative).

Sanjeev Chaturvedi is a 2002-batch Indian Forest Service officer.He stuck with his tough stance against corruption in all his appointments despite facing  repeated transfers and reprehension for insubordination .  According to the foundation, Mr. Chaturvedi has been awarded for “his exemplary integrity, courage and tenacity in uncompromisingly exposing and painstakingly investigating corruption in public office, and his resolute crafting of program and system improvements to ensure that government honorably serves the people of India.” Chaturvedi had served as the Chief Vigilance Officer(CVO) at AIIMS from 2012-2014.During his term he initiated actions in around 200 corruption cases during his stint as AIIMS CVO; punishment was imposed in 78 cases, chargesheet was issued in 87 cases and more than 20 cases were referred to CBI for criminal investigation. In 2014, Chaturvedi was relieved from the additional charge of CVO in a controversial move by the government.