Prize Winners
Prize Winner 2025
Vidhya Parshuramkar
Agrozee Organics and Millets Now
Rohini Nayyar Prize 2025
Short video about Vidhya Parshuramkar's work
Vidhya Parshuramkar represents a new generation of innovators transforming rural India through science and social enterprise. Vidhya leads Agrozee Organics and its flagship initiative, Millets Now, which is guided by a vision to make nutrition accessible, sustainable, and community-driven. An M.Tech in Food Technology from IIT Kharagpur, Vidhya discovered early in her journey how scientific innovation can transform traditional foods into modern nutritional solutions.
This conviction underpins her mission: to go beyond feeding people to cultivating healthy eating habits and creating brighter, more resilient communities. For her, food is not just about products, but about people —farmers, children, and rural families — coming together to build a healthier tomorrow. Under her leadership, Agrozee Organics is making an outstanding contribution to nutrition security, women’s empowerment, and rural development
Prize Winner 2024
Anil Pradhan
Young Tinker Foundation
Rohini Nayyar Prize 2024
Short video about Anil Pradhan's work
Anil Pradhan was born in the village of Baral, Odisha. Later, he migrated to Bhopal for education. He was the chief designer of Asia’s first university rocket team, VSLV. Anil’s return to his rural roots in 2017 fuelled his mission to bring hands-on education to underserved areas. After engineering, he chose to start an education revolution over lucrative job offers. Anil founded “Young Tinker,” revolutionizing hands-on learning in India. Young Tinker Spaces focused on STEM education, innovation, and leadership, impacting 247,000 students. He built a team of students from India who won world rank 3 at the NASA Rover Challenge in 2021, Asia’s 1st Under-19 team to do so. Anil’s innovations and educational tools, from tinker boxes to teaching aids, promote STEM subjects, innovation, and soft skills in rural Odisha.
Prize Winner 2023
Deenanath Rajput
Bhoomgadi Mahila Krishi Utpadak Sangathan
Rohini Nayyar Prize 2023
Short video about Deenanath Rajput's work
Deenanath Rajput, 33, led the establishment of a women-only Farmers’ Producer Organisation (FPO) in Jagdalpur, Bastar, Chhattisgarh in 2018. Bastar is a Naxal-affected, backward area and classified as an aspirational district by the Government of India. The FPO began with a membership of 337 tribal women. Since then, its membership has grown to 6,100 tribal women in four districts. Mr. Rajput’s work has involved providing agricultural extension services to women farmers, building a cold storage infrastructure, connecting them with national and international markets for their produce, and helping them diversify into value-added products like pickles. His work has transformed the lives of tribal women and their families in a disadvantaged geography of India.
Prize Winner 2022
Sethrichem Sangtam
Better Life Foundation
Rohini Nayyar Prize 2022
Short video about Sethrichem Sangtam's work
Sethrichem Sangtam grew up in a remote village in eastern Nagaland. Educated at the National Law School of India University at Bangalore, he later travelled across continents, and obtained a H1B work
visa that would have allowed him to work in the USA. Choosing instead to make a meaningful contribution to his community, he returned to India to work at the grassroots level. In 2009, Sethrichem founded a not for-profit organization, Better Life Foundation (BLF), to concentrate on issues of rural livelihood security, environmental sustainability and education for change. He emphasized local participation in the development process because a process owned and appreciated by the community would become institutionalized and sustained. Since then, he has promoted 337 Self Help Groups and 3 Farmers’ Producer Cooperative Societies in the districts of Tuensang and Kiphire, Nagaland.
