Dr. H. Sudarshan

Dr. Sudarshan was born on 30th December, 1950 near Bangalore. He finished his degree in medicine from Bangalore Medical College. He was later bestowed with Adjunct Professorship at the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) and is an Hon. Fellow of the Association of Rural Surgeons of India (ARSI).

After serving for a few years at the Ramakrishna Mission institutions in the Himalayas, West Bengal and Karnataka, he founded the Vivekananda Girijana Kalyana Kendra in 1981 for integrated development of tribal people in the remote Chamarajanagar district of Karnataka inhabited by forest-dwelling tribals. His approach to tribal development through health, education, livelihood security and biodiversity conservation and empowerment has won worldwide acclaim and he was awarded the Right Livelihood Award (The Alternate Nobel) in 1994 and he was given the Padmashree by the Presdient of India in 2000.

He is also the founder and Hon. Secretary of Karuna Trust, which is involved with integrated rural development in Karnataka and Arunachal Pradesh. The Trust is involved in primary health care through public-private partnerships by running 25 Primary Health Centres in Karnataka and 9 in Arunachal Pradesh.

In view of his wide public health experience, Dr. Sudarshan has held memberships on various prestigious committees at state, national and international levels. He is a member of the Executive committee of the Janasankya Sthiratha Kosh under the chairmanship of the Prime Minister and is also a member of the National Nutrition Mission and the National Commission on Population. More recently, he has been appointed the Chairman of the Task Force on Public-private Partnership at the National level. He is also the member of the Natinal level Resource Committee of the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare. He is the member of the Independent Commission on Health in India set up by the Voluntary Health Association of India. Earlier, he has served on the steering committee and working groups of the planning commission for the 9th and 10th plan periods and has also been a member of the National level Task Force on Primary Education.

In the state of Karnataka, he was invited to chair the Task Force on Health and Family Welfare and he has produced a comprehensive report that looks into various problems that plague the health care situation in the state. Having identified good governance as a critical issue he was appointed as the Vigilance Director of the Lokayukta, an ombudsman organization. He has toured the whole state of Karnataka in his tenure as the Vigilance Director and has helped implement good governance practices in health care.

He has received various recognitions for his work. Some of them include the Rajyotsava Award by the Government of Karnataka in 1984, Vivekananda Medal of the Ramakrishna Mission in 2004, International Distinguished Physician Award in 1995 and Human Rights award in 2001.