In a glittering ceremony that featured humour-packed moments, a virtuoso violin recital, and a scintillating hula hoop dance performance, Power Minister R.K. Singh presented businessline’s Changemaker of the Year award to the Reserve Bank of India for steering the country through the turbulent period of the pandemic. The ‘utterly butterly’ beloved brand, Amul, was crowned Iconic Changemaker of the Year.
Receiving the award, Jayen Mehta, Managing Director, GCMMF (Amul), light-heartedly quipped, “Early in the morning, at 5.00 a.m., you will see only two changemakers - newspapers and doodhwalas [milkmen].”
Mr. Mehta went on to acknowledge the 36 lakh women changemakers of Amul, on behalf of whom, he “was accepting this award”. “It is the second strongest food brand in the world. Amul’s cooperative model has demonstrated that when people, the marginalised, and the women come together, they can create a new model of development,” he emphasised.
RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das too dedicated the award to all officers, Department of Financial Services (DFS) officials, bank officials, and employees of the Central bank, praising their commitment and dedication. Responding humorously to Mr. Mehta’s comment about doodhwalas in the morning, he said, the intangible you don’t see at that time is whether the payment is made through cash or digital mode.
The fifth edition of the event saw awards being given in six categories – digital transformation, social transformation, financial transformation, young changemaker, iconic changemaker, and changemaker of the year. The digital transformation winner was Stellapps Technologies, a start-up that works on digitising the dairy sector. In social transformation there were two winners – HerKey, which aims to reverse the female brain drain and Educate Girls, an NGO that aims to improve access and quality of education for girls. The award for financial transformation went to Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana.
The Young Changemaker Award went to Shrinidhi R.S., creator of CherriLearn, an education app which offers gamified lessons in regional languages to children of classes 1-5.
In his address, the chief guest, Minister for Power and New and Renewable Energy, R.K. Singh said, “I was reflecting on change. Only when you make a difference, you can say you have justified your existence... when you have made a difference to a few people or to a large number of people. When the time comes for us to bid farewell to the world, this is the only thing that counts. Hearing the Amul MD and the RBI Governor made me realise that when the rest of the world is still struggling with the impact of the pandemic or other crises, we remain among the most stable and highest growing economies in the world.”
About the change he himself effected, the Minister said: “We transformed our country from a power-deficit to power-surplus country. We strengthened the distribution system. The availability of power has gone up as a result. We are the fastest growing in renewable energy.”
Earlier, inaugurating the event, Dr. Nirmala Lakshman, Chairperson of THG Publishing Private Limited, said, “Impactful change begins with the vision and determination of individuals and institutions ready to challenge the status quo.”
Raghuvir Srinivasan, Editor, businessline, said that bl’s endeavour was to put the spotlight on unrecognised changemakers.
The 2023 awards function was presented by Sastra. Associate partners were LIC, Casagrand, GMDC, LICHFL, Punjab & Sind Bank, United India, GAIL, and NTPC; banking partner was J&K Bank; online grocery partner BigBasket; tourism partner Bihar Tourism; education partner SSVM Institutions; television partner NewsX; gift partner Anand Prakash; knowledge partners Ashoka and Deloitte; and validation partner NIITI Consulting.
