Prakash and Mandakini Amte get Ramon Magsaysay Award

Kuala Lumpur, July 31 : Prakash and Mandakini Amte, India's philanthropist doctors, were declared winners of the prestigious Ramon Magsaysay Award.

They were given this award for their contributions to improving the lives of tribals in a remote Maharashtra village through medical care and education.

Prakash, the son of noted social activist Baba Amte, and his wife Mandakini are among the seven individuals from different countries who have been selected for this year's Magsaysay Award, regarded as Asia's equivalent of the Nobel Prize.

The medical doctor couple has been selected for the community leadership award, the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation said in Manila.

They are being recognised for "enhancing the capacity of the Madia Gonds (tribals) to adapt positively in today's India, through healing and teaching and other compassionate interventions," it said.

The husband-wife duo runs a school and a hospital at Hemalkasa village in the underprivileged district of Gadchiroli in Maharashtra's Vidarbha region for the welfare of the Madia Gond tribals.

Prakash's father Baba Amte, who died in February this year, had received the Ramon Magsaysay Award for public service in 1985.

ANI