Raj Loomba is a tireless campaigner for improving the plight of widows and their children in India, Uganda, Kenya, Syria, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Columbia. In India 4,000 children of widows are being educated by the Trust, which raises funds through charity.
Leading Non-Resident Indian entrepreneur Raj Loomba, a campaigner of widows' rights, Surina Narula, champion of street children in India and 16 others have been chosen for the Queen's Birthday Honours this year.
Manjula Sood, the India-origin Lord Mayor of Leicester, will release dozens of balloons to highlight the plight of widows in India on the International Widows Day on Monday. She said her own life would have been very different if she had been a widow in India, which she left in 1970.
NRI entrepreneurs Moni Varma, founder of the Veetee brand basmati rice and Rami Ranger, founder-chairman of Sun Oil Ltd, have won the Asian of the year and Asian Leadership in Europe Awards for 2006 respectively.
Founder of the Trust Raj Loomba said the £100,000 donated by MAC will be utilised for educating 300 children of widows for five years in Assam, Mizoram, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh and Tripura.