Madhu Pandit Dasa

Madhu Pandit Dasa is a monk of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness and president of ISKCON Bangalore, who trained as an engineer at IIT Bombay before joining the movement founded by A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. He is best known outside religious circles as the founder and chairman of The Akshaya Patra Foundation, the school meal organisation he began in July 2000.

The programme started by feeding children in government schools in Bengaluru Rural district, with the stated aim that no child in India should have to leave school because of hunger. Its distinguishing feature was engineering rather than charity: to cook at the scale required, Madhu Pandit Dasa designed a centralised kitchen model, in which industrial-scale kitchens prepare meals for large clusters of schools and deliver them daily. He also set the foundation's governance model, built around published accounts and external scrutiny; Akshaya Patra has been given the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India's Gold Shield for excellence in financial reporting five times, entering the institute's hall of fame. From an initial 1,500 children, the programme reports serving mid-day meals to around 2.2 million children a day across India.

He was awarded the Padma Shri by the Government of India in recognition of Akshaya Patra's service to children, and has received a Distinguished Alumnus Award from IIT Bombay in 2010 and honorary doctorates from Bangalore University and Poornima University. He also chairs the Vrindavan Chandrodaya Mandir project and the Basil Woods group of schools.[2]