NEW DELHI, January 4: Binalakshmi Nepram, humanitarian, author and civil rights activist, founder of Manipur Women Gun Survivors Network, CAFI and Northeast India Women Initiative for Peace who works to support women survivors of armed violence all across Northeast India has been listed in prestigious Forbes (India) Magazine `Minds That Matter`\u009d list for 2015, a press release by Manipur Women Gun Survivors Network said.<\/p>\n
The release said Forbes India in their 9 January 2015 issue writes that people like Nepram are `Thinkers who best explain a rapidly-changing India to the world (and the world to India)`\u009d and that Nepram was chosen as `She fights racism against people from the North East and says it like it needs to be said in a country with deep geographical and regional prejudices`\u009d. In 2014 Nepram along with many from region lead massive non-violent movements in India`\u2122s capital Delhi that forced government of India to set up the Bezbaruah Committee to look into racial discrimination of people from Northeast India.On 3rd January 2015,the recommendations of this committed was adopted by Govt of India<\/p>\n
It said Nepram is the only Northeast person included in the list. Many from the region hailed the inclusion of Nepram in Forbes list calling it `a feather in our caps`\u009d and a `public recognition of the significance`\u009d of Nepram`\u2122s decade long work for peace, disarmament, ending wars and a gender-just society in conflict affected Northeast India,home to South Asia`\u2122s longest running insurgency, the release added.<\/p>\n
Binalakshmi Nepram was born in Manipur is a writer, civil rights activist and a humanitarian spearheading work on making women-led disarmament a movement and an issue that is meaningful to people`s lives, the release further said. She is author of four books<\/p>\n
In 2003, in order to help thousands of women who are affected by gun violence in her home-state Manipur, Nepram started Manipur Women Gun Survivor Network. She has represented India civil society in various women and disarmament meetings held at United Nations in New York & Geneva. Nepram is recipient of Dalai Lama Foundation`s WISCOMP Scholar of Peace Award,Sean MacBride Peace Prize; CNN IBN Real Heroes Award. In 2013, London based organization Action on Armed Violence named Nepram as `100 most influential people in world working on armed violence reduction`\u009d, the release said.<\/p>\n\n