Here is a list of all the dynamic achievers of 2020, who made India proud!
Vikas Khanna
Michelin-Star Chef Vikas Khanna made headlines for feeding millions of people going hungry in the 
country. In December his award-winning film The Last Color released in India and later he announced an Indian cultural center in Manhattan to promote Indian art, culture, heritage, and the culinary arts. It is named ‘Binder’, a combination of alphabets from his parents’ names Bindu and Davinder. During the lockdown, while India slept, the chef worked across continents and time zones to organize a massive food distribution drive that has fed millions of people till date. Ask him what made him start Feed India, and he credits his mother, who stays in Amritsar. “My mom was quite brutal. She said that each time I hear of people going hungry and if my son is not doing anything, I will blame you,” he recalls. He has also written a soon-to-be-published book that details how Feed India has been taken care of. He also wants to document this because he wants people to know that everything is possible in this world.
Sonu Sood
Actor Sonu Sood, who is often seen on screen as a villain, turned out to be the hero of the year 2020. When the year kept throwing challenges at us, he inspired people to face them with kindness and compassion. The work that stood out was the Ghar Bhejo campaign to send migrants home and bring stranded Indian students back home. In April and May, as the lockdown kept extending, desperate migrants started walking home. Sood launched the Ghar Bhejo campaign with his friend and reportedly arranged transport for 7.5 lakh migrant workers. He equipped frontline workers with masks and face shields, airlifted students stranded abroad and helped farmers in distress. He also launched Pravasi Rojgar, an app to help skilled and unskilled workers find jobs. Sood arranged buses for migrants from Mumbai to travel home to Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttarakhand, Tamil Nadu and Akola in Maharashtra. Some migrants in Kerala and Mumbai were airlifted and sent home to Bhubaneswar, Uttarakhand and Assam.
Yashraj Mukhate
Extremely talented Yashraj Mukhate, a music content creator shot to fame with his unique 
composition popularly known as ‘Rasode mein kaun tha’. During the lockdown, while most of us were busy in Zoom meetings, baking our multiple batches of banana bread, this young man became the brightest start of social media overnight and his unique music style became the headlines of the entertainment and social media industry. Yashraj has been in the business for years and his talent has previously been recognized as well in the music circuit, but this journey of being a household name came as a surprise. With 1.7 million Instagram followers and growing, its showering success for the self-taught musician, who happens to be an engineer by degree.
Carry Minati
Ajey Nagar, popularly known as CarryMinati at the age of 21 has over 27.2 million subscribers on YouTube, which is among the highest in South Asia. He used to stream games before he started making diss tracks on what he found cringe-worthy on the internet. The sharp spike in India’s YouTube users in the last decade, including millions of Gen Z users, stimulated Ajey’s growth. Earlier, he was listed by Time magazine as ‘Next Generation Leaders’. For Carry, it generally takes three to four weeks from evaluating the relevance of a topic to executing the whole video if there are no skits involved. He goes with the flow without being cautious at all. However, with time he has started being careful as far as possible so that he does not intentionally hurt anyone’s feelings. At the end of it, we all have to understand that a roast is a roast and my intentions are not malicious, he states.
Niharika NM
Digital creator Niharika NM, where NM stands for Nothing Much, rose to fame during the pandemic time. When people were low on creativity and couldn’t pull themselves to be productive, Niharika kept churning videos after videos to keep her followers entertained. Niharika is one of Instagram’s fastest-growing digital content creators who crossed 1 million followers on Instagram, exactly 2 months after starting her account with 100k followers. According to Niharika, her USP is just how animated she can be sometimes with expressions, and the tone of delivery and accent also probably add a little something to it. Niharika has lived in Bangalore all her life, did computer science engineering for her undergrad and at present, she is pursuing MBA in LA.
Geetanjali Rao
Gitanjali Rao is a 15-year-old Indian-American inventor, author, scientist, and STEM promoter. She won the Discovery Education 3M Young Scientist Challenge in 2017 and was recognized on Forbes 30 Under 30 for her innovations. She became the TIME Top young innovator in 2020 for her innovations and “innovation workshops” she conducts across the globe and was named first “Kid of the Year” in 2020. She was first influenced by a science kit her uncle gave to her when she was 4 years old. When she was 10, she heard about the Flint water crisis while watching the news and became interested in ways to measure the lead content in water. She presented her idea at the 2018 MAKERS conference and raised a further $25,000. As of January 2019, she was working with the Denver water facility and hopes to have a prototype in the next two years. She has also developed an app named “kindly” that uses artificial intelligence that can detect cyberbullying at an early stage. She is currently a member of Scouts and has enrolled in the Scouting STEM program in the United States, and is working on getting her pilot’s license.
Saransh Goila
Chef Saransh Goila’s world-renowned butter chicken, which first arrived in Mumbai five years ago, has set its roots in London with the launch of a delivery-only concept. This is the first time Saransh’s lauded signature menu will find its way into homes beyond India. Creating an unforgettable experience for all Londoners, Goila Butter Chicken deliveries came with an accompanying Dal Makhani – a comforting, creamy mix of lentils – as well as sourdough naan, developed especially for the London launch and fired in a pizza oven, pickled sweet and sour shallots, coriander chutney and jeera rice. Vegetarians can replace the chicken with paneer, whilst optional extras of each individual element are also available. According to Saransh, the London opening came as a pivotal step in strengthening the brand’s footprint across the globe and is backed by a long-term partnership with the Templeton brothers. The brand anticipates a catapulted growth with a projection of 85 outlets by 2021 and 100 by 2023.
Adar Poonawalla
Adar Poonawalla, CEO, Serum Institute of India is the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer by the number of doses produced. He joined the Serum Institute of India in 2001 after graduating from university. Then exporting its products to 35 countries, Poonawalla concentrated on the company’s international market, new products license and getting pre-qualified by the World Health Organization for supply to United Nations Agencies including UNICEF and PAHO. Adar Poonawalla has been the cynosure of the vaccine wars among pharmaceutical companies around the world with his company being one of the major contenders to finding a breakthrough solution to the coronavirus crisis. The Pune-based company has collaborated with Oxford University and pharmaceutical company Astra Zeneca for making the vaccine and is conducting trials in India. He is among six people named ‘Asians of the Year’ by Singapore’s leading daily, The Straits Times for his company’s work in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic.
Nita Ambani
During COVID19, Nita Ambani and the Reliance Foundation was listed among the top philanthropists 
of 2020 for saving lives amid coronavirus outbreak. Nita Ambani and the efforts of Reliance Foundation in feeding frontline workers and the poor, its financial contributions, and for setting up India’s first Covid-19 hospital was duly recognized by the global media. The foundation distributed millions of meals and masks to frontline workers and the poor, set up India’s first hospital for COVID-19 patients, and donated $72 million to an emergency fund. According to Nita Ambani, crises almost always demand immediate and urgent attention, relief, of resources, ingenuity and most importantly of compassion. Over the years, we have equipped ourselves at the Foundation and at Reliance Industries to respond to crises with immediate, multi-pronged as well as systematic and calibrated responses to make our effort impactful and sustained.
Saurabh Choudhary
With two world records to his name, Saurabh Chaudhary, 17 is a teen of few words. He won gold 
medals at the Asian Games in 201i8, the Youth Olympics, and the ISSF Junior World Cup, where he shot to a world record score. But what’s more telling is that last February, at the Dr Karni Singh Shooting Range in Delhi, Chaudhary made his debut in a senior ISSF final and earned a world record in 10 m air pistol that not only fetched him a gold, but also a ticket to the Tokyo Olympics. He was always a fan of gun, but at the range too. In 2020 he made news by making his way to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics at a very young age.
Deepak Punia
Indian wrestling’s latest star Deepak Punia first showed glimpses of his talent with a title-winning run at the 2016 Cadet World Wrestling Championships in Tbilisi, Georgia. But it wasn’t until the 2019 season that the youngster exploded on to the international stage. Banking on some fine performances in the domestic circuit, Deepak Punia came into his own at the 2019 World Wrestling Championships (Junior) where he became the first Indian wrestler in 18 years to win a gold medal. Recently, Deepak Punia was named United World Wrestling’s Junior Freestyle Wrestler of the Year. Punia ended an 18-year drought and became the first Indian wrestler to win a junior world title since 2001.
Shefali Shah
Shefali Shah was brimming with excitement over her latest OTT series, Delhi Crime, winning at the 
2020 International Emmys. DC, as she refers to the crime series, based on the infamous 2012 real-life incident of the Delhi gang-rape case, won the Best Drama Series award at the recent virtually held Emmys, and Shah’s OMG reaction had, of course, gone viral. The Indian actor who dabbled in drama before making her presence felt on television made a small-scale debut on the big screen with Rangeela in 1995. A slew of performance-oriented acts followed for which she won recognition, including a National Film Award for Best Supporting Actress for The Last Lear in 2007.
Gautam Adani
While the coronavirus outbreak sank the nation into an unprecedented recession this year, Adani’s group has kept on growing. His conglomerate secured global partners, investments and pushed into new sectors. Shares of most of his firms have surged, including those of his mining, gas and ports units. Adani Green Energy Ltd has jumped more than six-fold this year as it received a record $6 billion solar-power deal, another step toward the company’s goal of becoming the world’s largest renewable-energy maker by 2025.
Uday Kotak
In 2020, the Reserve Bank of India extended Uday Kotak’s term as 
Managing Director of Kotak Mahindra Bank. While India has been grappling with a shadow-lending crisis, Kotak Mahindra Bank Ltd has been able to rise above the crisis, gaining investors’ trust by starting to slow lending to riskier sectors more than two years ago and keeping good corporate governance. At 61, Uday Kotak has a fortune estimated at $16 billion and is one of India’s richest bankers. 15. Prateek Gauri (industrial revolution)
Kiran Mazumdar Shaw
Dr. Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, the Executive Chairperson of India-based Biocon Limited, was named EY World Entrepreneur Of The Year 2020. She was picked from among 46 award winners from 41 countries and territories vying for the world title. In the award’s 20-year history, Kiran becomes the third EY World Entrepreneur Of The Year Award winner from India. She follows former Indian world title winners Uday Kotak of Kotak Mahindra Bank (2014) and N R Narayana Murthy of Infosys Technologies Limited (2005). She also became the second woman to hold the title, following Olivia Lum of Hyflux Limited from Singapore in 2011. Her pharma company Biocon is set to start phase IV trials of a potential COVID-19 drug and her wealth nearly doubled to $4.6 billion in 2020.
Byju Raveendran
With e-learning getting a renewed push in the year of the pandemic, Byju’s has grown into the world’s most successful edutech start-ups with 33 million users and 2.2 million paid subscribers. Founder Byju Raveendran featured on Forbes’ India’s Richest 2020 at No 46 with his wealth growing to $3.05 billion as of September 2020. The company’s last funding round in September 2020 valued it at more than $10 billion. Investors include Mark Zuckerberg, Tencent and Tiger Global. Byju’s has registered a cumulative 64 million downloads.
Roshini Nadar
Roshni Nadar Malhotra, in July this year, became the first woman to head a listed Indian IT company as she took over as the Chairperson of $8.9 billion HCL Technologies from her father and billionaire Shiv Nadar. She was named among the world’s 100 most powerful women by Forbes 2020. 39-year-old Roshni Nadar Malhotra is the youngest woman to achieve this feat in the Forbes Technology category. As per Kotak Wealth Management and Hurun India 2020 list of India’s 100 richest women, Roshni is India’s richest woman with a net worth of Rs 54,850 crore.
Pratik Gandhi
A new youth sensation and inspiration, Pratik Gandhi has been in news since the release of “Scam 1992”, based on the real-life 1992 year scam by Harshad Mehta. This actor has been in the spotlight and because of his talent and dedicated and realistic acting, won the hearts of the audience. In past, he was included in the Limca Book of Records with his play Mohan’s Masala; a monologue performed in three languages, English, Hindi, and Gujarati on the same day. He played a lead role in his next Wrong Side Raju (2016), which also became commercially and critically successful. The film went on to win the National Award for Best Gujarati Film.
Sushmita Sen
Being the Miss Femina 1994 and Miss Universe 1994, Sushmita Sen started acting in Bollywood at a young age. But after her last movie by Red Chillies Entertainment, she took a break for and now charmed her fans with the “Aarya” series. She has time and again proven her expertise in acting. She had stayed off the radar for quite a few years after the release of Main Hoon Na only to make a solid comeback with the recent web show. Playing a role like never before, Sushmita Sen clearly left us all bowled with her acting, proving yet again why 
she is an unparalleled baroness.
Armaan Malik
He bagged his first MTV Europe Music Award for his debut English single “Control”. The 25-year-old won the Best India Act award in November. “I want to thank all my ‘Armaanians’ across the world who voted for me without whom this would not have been possible. They just shower me with so much love and I feel like the luckiest guy on the planet! Last but not least, this win is dedicated to all those young Indian kids who dare to dream and work hard to make them come true, this is for you. Dream on,” he had said after the victory.
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