Indian street vendor Dinesh Kumar Dixit, who was featured in an Atlas Network video in May 2019, was honored with a Digital Media Award by the Indraprastha Media Hub of IPPCI Media, a Hindi media portal in New Delhi. Nearly 200 people attended the award ceremony and loudly applauded when his video was screened.
Dinesh's story of perseverance has resonated with millions of Indians, including other street vendors who benefit from expanded legal recognition in the regulatory system that the Centre for Civil Society helped realize.
Exercising one's freedom takes different forms from person to person. For Dinesh, it was the ability to sell bangles in Sarojini Nagar Babu Market without fear of extortion, bribery, fines, fees, and confiscation. With CCS's help, he is able to pursue an honest living plying his trade free of artificially imposed barriers.
The true value of freedom is brought home to people everywhere through compelling stories of real people like Dinesh. The Doing Development Differently video series, which tells the stories of people who thrive in the absence of barriers that have kept them from achieving their full potential, have resonated with millions of viewers around the world. Dinesh's story of perseverance in the face of corruption, government-sanctioned aggression, and an imperfect legal environment provides an eloquent enunciation of the ideas of liberty.