Magsaysay Award for Prakash Amte, wife

(August 2, 2008) More than three decades after Baba Amte won the Magsaysay Award for public service, his son Prakash Amte was on Thursday chosen along with his wife Mandakini for the prestigious prize, called the Asian Nobel Prize, in the category of community leadership. The Ramon Magsaysay Award was established in April 1957 by the trustees of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund based in New York City. With the concurrence of the Philippine government, the prize was created to commemorate Ramon Magsaysay, the late president of the Philippines, and to perpetuate his example of integrity in government, courageous service to the people, and pragmatic idealism within a democratic society. When news that he and his wife have been chosen for the award reached him, Prakash was doing what he is best at — rescuing animals: releasing a 8-ft-long python in the jungle. It was 35 years ago, following in the footsteps of his father that Prakash had set up the first hospital for the Madia Gond tribals living in deplorable conditions in the forests of Gadchiroli district of Maharashtra and nearby Bastar region, now part of Chhattisgarh. Equipped with a medical degree, he took up his father’s offer to serve the tribals. Baba Amte had won the award in 1975. The doctor couple were awarded for “enhancing the capacity of Madia Gonds to adapt positively in today’s India, through healing and teaching and other compassionate interventions’’, the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation said in Manila.