Main Article Content
Abstract
India is the seventh-largest country in the world in terms of land mass and has 17.5% of the world’s population, making it the second most populous country after China. The principles of neoliberal economy require remote communities to be included in the national and international markets, especially under regional economic integration. In Asia, where rapid economic growth happens in tandem with increasing poverty the challenge is to solve societal problems through innovation and local knowledge production. In this background the paper is to discuss that India witnessed considerable growth in its social enterprise activity. The number and quality of innovative ideas and business plans has improved due to growing awareness, support, and quality training and workshops available for social entrepreneurs and social enterprise leaders. The social enterprise ecosystem has evolved with support organisations providing direct, indirect, financial, and advisory assistance to social enterprises. Further it is very important to know that India ranks as the 14th best country to be a social entrepreneur, ahead of Australia (26th), China (34th), and Brazil (40th), according to new research from the Thomas Reuters Foundation. It is also important to review the literature on social entrepreneurs from the research studies and study reports. Further the paper discusses how the social entrepreneurs empower the life of communities and its role in shaping life of the communities who are not empowered through their poverty and lack of skills. Finally the paper will conclude importance of social entrepreneurs and contribution of entrepreneurs in shaping the life of the communities.