| He
is a pediatrician with more than 30 years of experience,
having done his MD (Ped.) in 1976 and committed to building
up issues around supporting women to succeed in optimal
breastfeeding practices. Motivated by his strong belief,
and noticing that problems started more often in health
systems, he mobilized a group of pediatricians to engage
into founding of the national network - named Breastfeeding
Promotion Network of India(BPNI) in 1991. He gave up his
lucrative private practice (owner of a 30 bedded children's
hospital in Jalandhar, Punjab) and moved to Delhi in 1990,
and a formal BPNI was born in 1991.
First few years he acted as a part time advisor/worker/implementer/manager/administrator
etc. etc. and in 1998 he gave up his clinical assignments
in Delhi, and fully moved into building the BPNI to raise
it to the current heights in 16 years' time. BPNI is now
recognized as a premier and a pioneer institution to support
the governments and others on technical and other related
issues.
He
has single-handedly led this movement through BPNI to put
breastfeeding on national and political agenda. Mobilized
a network of more than 3500 people in the volunteer breastfeeding
movement build a strong opinion on the issue of infant survival
and development in the country. His contribution to building
this institution has been recognized by other countries
also, where he has been able to influence policy and legal
frameworks. |
Dr. Arun Gupta, MD (Ped), FIAP
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He has led high-level campaigns through BPNI to bring in legislative
reforms for this protection of mothers and children. BPNI, along
with other agencies led the movement to enactment of the national
legislation, 'Infant Milk Substitutes, Feeding Bottles, and Infant
Foods( Regulation of Production, Supply and Distribution) Act, 1992,
to protect breastfeeding was enacted in 1992, and further strengthened
in 2003. In 2004, when a plan to repeal this Act was put up, he
led a 3-month long fight and finally saved this Act. His few minutes'
meetings with political stalwarts have yielded long lasting results
for the babies and mothers. One such example is the Cable TV Network
service Act was amended in 2000 including ban on advertising of
baby foods and feeding bottles.
His efforts have made BPNI into a nationally recognized institution,
which is sought after for example to address Parliament questions;
national policies, state policies, its development and analysis,
documentation, facilitation of discussions etc. He has been invited
to be a member of several government committees on children.
He has extensively written to raise the voice of infants, in the
Economic and Political Weekly, Editorial for Times of India, and
Civil Society are a few to mention . He has been quoted extensively
for the issues in national press. Apart from this he has also written
and developed several academic publications on the issue. In the
BPNI, development of training materials, writing technical documents,
advocacy documents, analysis of data have been his strengths, which
Hon'ble President Dr APJ Abdul Kalam also recognised. The Indian
Academy of Pediatrics awarded him as a "Fellow" in 2001.
He is an inspiring example of developing strong and dedicated network
and created a movement in India that has brought global appreciation
to India.
He is internationally renowned in this area of work and currently
is regional coordinator of IBFAN, the Right Livelihood recipient
in 1998. Recognized by his work, in 1996, World Alliance for Breastfeeding
Action (WABA) awarded him, as one of the twelve special recipients
of the International awards " for strong regional advocacy role
for WABA and effort of protecting the Code nationally" . WABA later
nominated BPNI as its regional focal point for South Asia. He has
been speaking at international and regional country meetings on
children. He is member of the Working group on breastfeeding and
complementary feeding of the UN Sub Committee on nutrition (SCN)
and he made presentations at its recent meeting in March 2007. He
was recently invited to contribute a chapter in the "Project " Global
obligation for the Right to Food" - he chose to write on ' "International
obligations on Right to Food for infants" in which he is asking
to establish an international mechanism to provide a minimum essential
package (MEP) for women to enable them to successfully breastfeed.
He
has made outstanding contribution to child health and survival,
not in India but also in many south Asian and east Asian countries,
his close association with the government actually makes health
care reach many million of mothers and children. His untiring advocacy
efforts and creation of a breastfeeding movement, putting breastfeeding
on the national agendas contribution to national legislations and
inputs into global agenda make him fit to receive the national award.
More about his work can also be seen at www.bpni.org,
www.worldbreastfeedingtrends.org,
www.napiindia.in/
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