I remember the day, the first meal was served, at a government school. The children were exuberant, but never expected that we would come with food, the next day too! But we did go, not only the next day but we have been able to sustain this for 16 years now.

It is a matter of exceptional pride and honor, for Akshaya Patra to be selected for the Nikkei Asia Prize. I sincerely thank Nikkei Inc. and all the respected jury members, for recognizing the efforts of Akshaya Patra to support education of the underprivileged children, by feeding them every day, for Asia’s better future.

Indeed this recognition by Nikkei Inc., is an invitation to us to join an extraordinary league of people and organizations in Asia who have been instruments of social change in the region; This honor brings about feelings of both pride and humility.

Where did it all begin!

Akshaya Patra was born from a story of compassion that I would like to share with everyone…

On a hot sunny day, the world renowned spiritual leader, His Divine Grace A C Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, who is my Guru and my inspiration, witnessed a disturbing sight when he looked out of his window! Some street children and few dogs were fighting over scraps of food remnants disposed outside the temple after a big feast offered to the guests. The sight moved him deeply and he issued a mandate to all his followers to take up the mission of feeding the hungry, especially children.

In the year 2000, Mr. Mohandas Pai, a well-known corporate professional and the then CFO of Infosys, walked into my office and told me...”Swamiji, it is nice to see you feeding all the visitors to the temple. But what about those children, who are starving in our neighboring schools? Can we do something for them? “

This divinely timed question, reminded me of the mandate of Swami Prabhupada and that triggered the starting of Akshaya Patra. We made a humble beginning, by feeding a small number of 1500 children every day. Little did any of us know then, that it was just a seed sown by Providence, for a mammoth operation in the years to come. An operation to wipe out hunger from the life of more than a million school children.

According to FAO, out of 794.6 million hungry people in the world, 195 million are in India. Thus India is a home to quarter of the under nourished population in the world. Further the World Bank’s Report on Health, Nutrition and population states that “the prevalence of underweight children in India is among the highest in the world, and is nearly double that of Sub-Saharan Africa.

This resolve of ours, is inspired by compassion for those children, who otherwise miss the only lifetime chance of education just because of not being able to afford a meal.

Today, Akshaya Patra serves 1.5 million wholesome meals to children every school day. The motivation of eating a healthy tasty meal, brings children back to their classrooms day after day. After all, a hungry child cannot learn anything!

In fact, the name Akshaya Patra refers to a mystical vessel, that features in India’s famous epic Mahabharata. It is a vessel from which one can draw unlimited food. Today, true to its name, the program has scaled to feed millions.

Today, Akshaya Patra serves 1.5 million wholesome meals to children every school day. The motivation of eating a healthy tasty meal, brings children back to their classrooms day after day. After all, a hungry child cannot learn anything!

This food-for-education revolution, that started back in the year 2000 has grown from strength to strength, reaching quality food to millions of beneficiaries. This year we happy to announce that we have served the 2nd billionth cumulative meal. Our aspiration is that no child in India should go hungry. And that hunger should not be an impediment for education.

The impact of this program has inspired us to aspire to feed 5 million children by 2020. We are confident that with thousands of socially sensitive minds and generous hands supporting us, including all of you who are sitting here today, we will be able to fulfill this vision and even more in the coming years.

Let us have a look at the problem of hunger. Hunger and poverty has been forcing our children to live in a state of silent emergency. Citing a few facts:

According to FAO, out of 794.6 million hungry people in the world, 195 million are in India. Thus India is a home to quarter of the under nourished population in the world. Further the World Bank’s Report on Health, Nutrition and population states that “the prevalence of underweight children in India is among the highest in the world, and is nearly double that of Sub-Saharan Africa.

In India 3000 children under age of 5 die every day due to mal nutrition. More than 12 million children are forced to labour, when they should be actually attending school.

Why does hunger and poverty exist? God did not create this. This is created by human beings and can be solved only by humans, of course with God’s grace. God help those who help themselves.

The Oxfam International Report in 2015 declares that, “the combined wealth of the richest 1 per cent will overtake that of the other 99 per cent of people next year (2016) unless the current trend of rising inequality is checked.”

We cannot stop the natural force of karma- the immutable law of human action and reaction that makes one person to be born in a rich family and while another one is born is a poor family. This economic divide between the rich and the poor will always remain. But there is something else that we can do to bridge this gap between the rich and the poor. We can unleash the compensating force of compassion, in the hearts of the rich, to share their wealth at least to meet the basic needs of humanity. Feeding a child is not charity but a social obligation of the wealthy.

The compassion for fellow beings is a basic tenet of all religions on this earth. It is only by promoting and awakening this virtue of compassion, and turning into action in human society, that we can make this world more inclusive, equitable and sustainable.

Akshaya Patra, through its well-established platform of transparency and accountability, ignites the virtue of compassion among the affluent sections of the society, to support the underprivileged, thereby providing a sense of mutual belonging and fulfillment for both the giver and receiver. This is the ideology of Akshaya Patra.

In the last sixteen years, we have demonstrated that collective compassion of humanity, turned into action, is the real corpus for the sustenance of this initiative. It was with faith in this divine virtue in humanity that we started this program-with practically no corpus funds. And to state the truth to this day it runs so without having the backing and security of huge accumulated corpus funds. Day after day, month after month, year after year it runs, hand to mouth, with the help of a divinely and mystically sourced force.

We believe that by feeding and educating, just one member of a family, an entire family is freed from poverty.

We have personally witnessed the transformation in the lives of many children. Within a little more than a decade of benefiting from the meal program, hundreds of thousands of children have successfully completed their education and settled with good jobs. This has changed the fortunes of entire families.

Akshaya Patra firmly believes that every nation’s destiny is in the quality of life that it offers to its children. Not only the destiny of nation but the destiny of our entire human civilization, especially so when the world is moving toward a single global economic village.

I appreciate this great nation for its timeless beauty, hard working citizens and for its path breaking contribution in the field of technology and innovation. In fact I appeal to many of you who are here, who may be leaders in food industry, to give us service of your Japanese brains to develop better and innovative technology by which we can touch more and more lives through Akshaya Patra! We extensively use Kaizen to improve our operational efficiency and to bring down the cost of the meal.

I accept this honor and the prize of 3 milliion JYN , with a profound sense of gratitude to Nikkei Inc and with humility on behalf of our movement and for the benefit of those 1.5 million children whose lives has changed because of a wholesome meal day after day.

I would like to share this award with all my mentors, advisors, trustees, donors and friends and over 6000 staff members of the foundation who have given Akshaya Patra their valuable time, wisdom and support.

Without the Government of India, and different state governments by our side, it would not have been able to have been possible to scale up to 1.5 million children. In fact the Akshaya Patra model has proved the efficacy of a Public Private Partnership to address one of the social problems, namely hunger and education.

I would also like to take this opportunity to extend my heartiest congratulations, to my fellow recipients, Dr Jiang Lei (Ji-aang leh) and Mr Dogmid Sosorbaram, (Dogmid Soso-ba-rum). I wish them good health and success for their future endeavours.

Finally I would like to dedicate this award to Swami Prabhupada, who is inspiring us every day to work for the cause of hunger in the world.

I thank people of Japan, whose hospitality and graciousness has made my first visit here a memorable one. Japan has always been a nation that I admired and it is a pleasure to be in midst of the eminent citizens of such country.

Thank you!