Indian social entrepreneur wins Commonwealth award

A social entrepreneur from Tamil Nadu on Wednesday bagged the Commonwealth Youth Award for the Asian region from among hundreds of nominations for his technology-based food rescue organisation.

Padmanaban Gopalan, founder of No Food Waste, was named the winner of the award worth 3,000 pounds at a ceremony at the Commonwealth Secretariat in London for his work towards achieving the UN's Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) of Zero Hunger with his innovative system of recovering excess food to distribute to those in need.

"There is no pain like the pain the hunger. This award means a lot to me and all my hundreds of volunteers who help with our mission of feed people, not landfills," said 26-year-old Padmanaban, who made his first-ever trip to London from Coimbatore for the ceremony.

Someone who describes himself as a "dreamer", he founded his surplus food recovery system in Tamil Nadu which is already active across different regions of South India.

The programme works with volunteers and