The genesis of the process to create the awards began with a thought in 2003. In early 2005 it was discussed by the founders with Dr. Prannoy Roy, who loved the idea and asked his team to wholeheartedly support the same with promotions and a program to mainstream the novel awards for social justice and citizen action in the public domain, and thus we had him as a part of the initial process for putting the awards idea and criteria together. At that time we were also closely working with FICCI to see how we could promote this together and thus had Dr. Amit Mitra’s guidance for the initial process. We approached MERCER, the international audit consulting firm, to help us put the process together under the tutelage of their country head, Mr. Shankar at that time, who helped us put the awards process paper together. We also had Grant Thornton, the international accounting and audit firm, that also helped us with the due diligence and audit for the omega rating process. Mr. Vikesh Mehta from GT discussed the process with the audience at the first conclave and thus the process was also endorsed by citizens at large attending the forum. To build a larger sectoral partnership we brought in various partners like TISS, CMS, FISME, FICCI, NASSCOM, BCC&I and even a student body AIESEC. These partners were represented by citizens like Prof Parasuraman (TISS), Dr. N. Bhaskar Rao (CMS), Mr. Anil Roy (FISME), Ms. Rufina Fernandes (NASSCOM), Mr. Harry Sethi (FICCI) and even students like Mr. Karan Ahuja, Ms. Chandni Chhabra and Ms. Jasmer Dhingra from AIESEC, and various others. We are grateful to all of them for their support and solidarity, for helping us to make the KARMAVEER into a very prestigious recognition and award program.

Thus the initial selection process, for the first two years of 2006-07 and 2007-08, was conducted in close consultation with panel representation from all the partners, supporters and patrons (names of people are as mentioned above and in the governance link on this website), who contributed to the process for nominating and selecting worthy and deserving awardees for their social justice and citizen action. The process for the past 3 years has been directed and co- chaired by Mr. Jagdish Sharma and Dr. N. Bhaskar Rao and our chief patrons over the years- the constitutional guru late Dr. L. M. Singhvi (who demystified the constitution for us at our first conclave and set the path for us), veteran statesman Mr. Vasant Sathe (who has been a guiding force and mentor all along) and former Chief Electoral Commissioner Mr. James Michael Lyngdoh (who has taught us all along to be fearless and to be the change). As a founding and inclusive principle we also decided that the awards shall be given away by our mentors, past awardees and also people and children from the marginalised communities that we want to ensure have social justice to further enhance the spirit of oneness and camaraderie. From of 2008-09 we also decided that the selection panel would have a maximum of 9- 11 people and the majority of the panel shall comprise of past awardees.