The 18th annual INDIA New England Woman of the Year was held virtually on March 6,2020. The event lead by Upendra Mishra and Manju Sheth picked 20 honorees for the event. A selection panel awarded the Woman of the Year award to Varshini Prakash. Lokvani had honored Varshini in 2018 with the Rising Star award. 

Varshini Prakash is the Executive Director and co-founder of Sunrise, a movement of young people working to stop climate change, take back our democracy from Big Oil, and elect leaders who will fight for our generation’s health and wellbeing. As an undergrad at the University of Massachusetts, she took on the fossil fuel industry by pushing her university to stop investing in coal, oil, and gas. She led the campaign to victory after a 2-week long escalation involving thousands of students, alumni, and faculty. Varshini has been a leading voice for young Americans, including last fall when she helped lead a mass demonstration for the Green New Deal that went viral and put climate change on the map for Congress. Varshini‘s work has been featured in the New Yorker, Democracy Now, TeenVogue, BBC, Washington Post and more. She was recently named to the Grist Top 50 Fixers for “people cooking up the boldest, most ambitious solutions to humanity’s biggest challenges”. She was on the TIME 100 Next List in 2019 and also was on the Forbes 30 under 30 list in 2020. 

Mandy Pant and Jharna Madan served as the MCEEs for the event with Manju Sheth serving to introduce certain portions of the event. The panel also made special mentions of  Rhitu Siddarth and Priti Chatter. “Rhitu has been bravely providing humanitarian leadership through her work with the UN in many troubled and battled countries like Syria, Sudan, Libya and more over the last 18 years.  Priti Chatter, who quietly and surely makes an impact in solving problems that address the immediate needs of billion people” said Praveen Tailam, the lead Judge. 

 

Sridevi Ajai Thirumalai was given a Life Time Achievement award for her efforts as a dance teacher, performer and choreographer. The AIF Circle of Hope co-founded by Nirmala Garimella and Farida Kathawalla was specially honored as well. 

The 20 finalists for the Woman of the Year were 

Gayatri Aryan, Sunita Badola, Priti Chatter, Swati Elavia, Manisha Jain, Yogita Miharia, Sandra Nagale, Pratima Penumarthy, Thara Pillai, Varshini Prakash, Dr.Sailaja Reddy, MD, Shimna Sameer, Dr. Vaishali Sanchorawala, MD, Rhitu Siddharth, Rachana Shah, Dr. Bharati Sinha, MD, Aditi Soni, Renu Tewarie, Geeta Vallecha, Reetika Vijay. 

Lokvani congratulates all the honorees.