Ajay Edwards is heir to Darjeeling's famous Glenary's bakery and restaurant. The business whizkid tripled its annual turnover to Rs 7.5 million. He expanded it into a restaurant chain across northeastern India. Today, Glenary's is synonymous with Darjeeling. Barely 30, a millionaire and father of five, Ajay realised that if he continued this way he would die a rich man but wouldn't have done anything for his community.

So, Ajay took a sabbatical from work and started making up for lost time to save Darjeeling. First thing was to organise the annual Darjeeling Carnival to promote tourism and improve the livelihoods of people here.

A Himalayan Region Youth Forum for young people from conflict-ridden areas of the Indian northeast, Kashmir and even Nepal is in the works. He wants them to be able to come together, share their experiences and help each other overcome the trauma of conflict and growing up amidst violence. Ajay himself had a troubled youth and did not study beyond class eight.

The people of Darjeeling still have to travel down to Siliguri for medical treatment and are cheated by hospitals there. Ajay decided to establish a diagnostic centre in Darjeeling itself. This project will cost Rs 1.5 million and
Ajay has come up with an ingenuous method to raise funds: he plans to ask each Darjeeling resident to donate a minimum of IRs 100, which will be transformed into a coupon that can be used at the centre once it is established. The hospital gets built, and Darjeelingays benefit. It is easy to see why this man struck it rich. He is a socially and politically concerned citizen and as he puts it "This is no coincidence, it is providence".