Sandeep Pandey

Meet Sandeep Pandey, who has a doctorate in mechanical engineering from University of California, Berkeley. The forty-one year old sports a khadi kurta and runs the Asha Ashram in Lalpur village in Hardoi district. He won the Magsaysay in 2002, in the Emergent Leadership category.The main reason he dumped the American dream for a life of struggle and toil was his desire to provide basic needs and education for children, particularly dalits. In recent times he has spearheaded the cause of right to information.Pandey says he decided to work in villages after he read a report by MIT, whose experts found that more than 50 per cent of India's children never went to school. The mission he undertook 15 years back remains undiluted. The ashram has spawned 50 chapters worldwide. What keeps Pandey going is the simple faith of the village folk. "Villagers are simple people. A village activist will not switch his cause because someone else's paying more,'' says Pandey, who was a professor at IIT-Kanpur.