Indian-origin minister wins the first ever Queen Elizabeth II Woman of the Year award
As most of you know, Queen Elizabeth II, the longest reigning monarch of Britain passed away earlier this month. Following that, the nation declared its first ever Queen Elizabeth II Woman of the Year award, as part of the Asian Achievers Awards (AAA) 2022. It has been recently conferred during a ceremony at London to Britain’s current Home Secretary Suella Braverman, an Indian-origin woman.
Meet Suella Braverman
For those unaware, Suella Braverman succeeded another Indian-origin woman in the role of Home Secretary and was only appointed to the Cabinet in early September by Britain’s new Prime Minister Liz Truss. Suella Braverman is a 42-year-old London-born daughter of Tamil mother Uma and Goan father Christie Fernandes, who immigrated to Britain from Kenya and Mauritius respectively during the 1960s. She is a barrister by profession and was the Attorney General for England and Wales and Advocate General for Northern Ireland from 2020 to 2022. As for her political career, it began in 2015 with her becoming an MP for the Conservative Party. She had even chaired the European Research Group from 2017 to 2018. Braverman still resides in Wembley, the heart of Asian community in London and is known to be proud of her roots. Under the leadership of former British Prime Minister Theresa May, Braverman had also served as the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union in 2018.
Interestingly, Braverman was not present in person to receive the latest honour and it was her parents who accepted the award on her behalf. However, she made sure to send a recorded message which shared her happiness and also mentioned how it was the “honour of her life.”
Asian Achievers Awards: A bird’s eye view
Queen Elizabeth II Woman of the Year award is the latest addition to the categories (10 in total) of the Asian Achievers Awards. It has been running for the past two decades. In fact, it was founded in 2000 by Asian Business Publications Limited (ABPL) and is now overseen by EPG, the global advisory firm. The AAA identifies, recognises and supports the contributions and accomplishments of individuals from across Britain’s South Asian community, and is totally based on public nominations. It focuses on those innovators, visionaries and community giants from the fields of politics, business, academics and civil society who dedicate their lives to making Britain and the world a better place.
This year, as many as 500 nominations were received across 10 categories, which were then shortlisted by a jury so as to evenly divide between the two genders, male and female. The judging panel comprised of diverse range of professionals such as Former Deputy Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Bas Javid, former president of the Royal College of General Practitioners Mayur Lakhani, Monzo Bank COO Sujata Bhatia, music producer Bally Sagoo, Welsh Assembly Member Natasha Asghar, and Artistic Director of Darbar Festival, Sandeep Virdee.
Asian Achievers Awards 2022 at a glance
This year’s AAA was special not just because Suella Braverman received the first ever Queen Elizabeth II Woman of the Year award but also because as part of the awards ceremony, a charity auction was organised by distinguished writer Jeffrey Archer raised more than 100,000 pounds for the Indian educational non-profit organisation ‘Pardada Pardadi’ that focuses on girl education.
Besides, there were other Indian-origin winners across other categories such as, broadcaster Naga Munchetty (in the Media category); Namit Malhotra, chairman and CEO of well-known visual effects company DNEG (in the Arts and Culture category), and Captain Harpreet Chandi in the Uniformed and Civil Service category for her solo expedition across the Antarctic to the South Pole earlier this year. Wait, we aren’t done yet.
Professional of the Year award was won by Professor Sir Shankar Balasubramanian for his pioneering DNA sequencing discovery, while the award for the Sports Personality of the Year was conferred to Karenjeet Kaur Bains, who was the first female Sikh powerlifter to represent Britain on the global stage. In addition, Sherry Vaswani, CEO of IT services firm Xalient was named as the Entrepreneur of the Year and restaurateur brother duo Shamil and Kavi Thakrar won the Business Persons of the Year awards for establishing the successful Dishoom chain of restaurants. Last but not the list, the Lifetime Achievement Award was given to Kartar Lalvani, the founder of the UK's well-known health supplements brand Vitabiotics.