Light of India: Ajit Jain or Anshuman Jain?
Ah Indians! They love nothing more than to hear of desis succeeding big time, be it in the homeland or in the Diaspora. So it’s that time of the year again when the hunt is on to recognize excellence of Indians Abroad across different fields. Each year the search gets a bit more challenging: In the sphere of corporate excellence, how do you choose between Ajit Jain and Anshuman Jain, among other noted names? In science and technology, among others, you have three noted physicians who also happen to be writers: Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee, Dr. Atul Gawande and Dr. Sanjay Gupta.
The Light of India Awards initiative has been organized by a Times of India group company, Remit2India, and they have got in some major big names on the jury including Shashi Tharoor, Mira Nair, Ajay Bijli, Bhawana Somaaya and Chitra Banerjee.
The nominations are quite a diverse mix of names: For corporate leadership, you have Ajay Waghray, Chief Information Officer for Verizon Wireless; Ajit Jain, Chief Executive Officer of Reinsurance Division of Berkshire Hathaway Inc; Anshuman Jain, Co-CEO of Deutsche Bank; Dinesh Keskar, President of Boeing India & Vice President of Boeing International; Harish Manwani, Global COO for Unilever and Padmasree Warrior, Chief Technology Officer of Cisco Systems.
Celebrating Indians in the Diaspora
In the category of literature and journalism there are Amitav Ghosh, Hari Kunzru, Indu Sunderesan, Jhumpa Lahiri, Kavita Daswani, and Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee, who is also nominated in the science category. Other categories include Corporate, Business, Science Technology & Medicine, Literature & Journalism, Arts & Entertainment, Education and Academics
No evaluation of Indian success can be complete without an arts and entertainment segment, and the NRI names being celebrated here are Lisa Ray, M. Night Shyamalan, Meera Syal, Padma Lakshmi, Sanjeev Bhaskar, and Sunil Nayar. To check out the nominations in various fields, you can visit www.lightofindiaawards.com and while there also get a chance to win a free trip to India on Etihad Airways by voting for your choice of candidates for the People’s Choice Award. On June 1, the awardees will be announced at a gala at the Pierre Hotel.
As a start up to the event, a cocktail at the Pierre featured a Q and A with an NRI achiever in her own right, Reshma Saujani, Deputy Advocate for Special Initiatives at the Office of the New York City Public Advocate, who made news when she ran against ninth term incumbent Carolyn Maloney, democrat and U.S. House Representative for New York’s 14th congressional district. As a child of immigrants who’s risen to the top, she has a fascinating and inspiring story to share. Guests were treated to a vigorous Q and A with her, conducted by Sital Patel, a senior producer at Fox News.
Also present were Avijit Nanda, President of TimesofMoney, and Suhel Seth who is a juror for the Light of India Awards. The nominations for the Light of India Awards were announced at the event. No matter who wins the awards, the winners will be the audience who always love to watch a good competition and root for the winners.
Related Article
4 Comments
Hi Meena, having watched the South Asian community evolve in the US over the past decades I certainly do have a mental list of the best in the community. Maybe year-end I will share the Lassi with Lavina list of top achievers with readers!
Well said, Priya!
Via Facebook
Nice to see Indu Sundaresan’s name in the nominees list. I had the pleasure of interviewing her for my blogzine. Does Lassi with Lavina also have its own list? That would be interesting to read as well 🙂
Via Facebook
Go India!