MUMBAI: Zee Marathi, Maharashtra's leading Marathi channel, media and entertainment conglomerate with its entire spirits takes pride to announce Lux Presents Unch Maza Zoka Puraskar 2014, which is a unique step taken by the channel in recognizing the women achievers of Maharashtra.

Zee Marathi is one of the most popular Marathi channels in regional space and number one channel in Maharashtra. It has carved a niche for itself by creating pioneering content that engages audiences. Zee Marathi has created shows that have inspired and shown the way to society at large.

Continuing with this legacy, Zee Marathi had launched 'Unch Maza Zoka' based on the life and mission of the great social reformer Ramabai Ranade. As we all are aware, Ramabai Ranade was an awe inspiring activist who pledged her life for the cause of the betterment of women. Through our serial we gave a fresh perspective to the meaning of 'women empowerment' and with a view to laud the efforts of women who have worked tirelessly and fearlessly for others, we take another initiative to recognize their efforts.

After successfully touching millions of lives with Unch Maza Zoka Award’s initiated last year, Zee Marathi continued to aim at highlighting women achievers who had the zeal to think out of the box and go the extra mile to realize their dreams for the society. It is a platform to recognize the work of women across various fields and to bring out their outstanding stories that would enlighten and enrich the people. The awards have been adjudged by an esteemed panel of experts; noted journalist Mr.Kumar Ketkar, Ex-Vice-Chancellor of Mumbai University Dr. Snehalata Deshmukh & noted writer Smt. Vijaya Rajadhyaksha respectively and it features women achievers from varying fields including Social work, education, healthcare, sports, arts & literature, science, environment, agriculture etc.

Deepak Rajadhyaksha, Business Head, Zee Marathi has expressed his feelings on UMZ Awards 2014, “Our endeavor is to encourage the creation of future opinion leaders and inspire them to fulfill their destinies. After a successful first year, our thrust will be to encourage women more towards action and inspire them to chase their dreams and achieve them. It gives us immense pride and great pleasure to announce the winners of Unch Maza Zoka Awards for the women achievers. It was undoubtedly a colossal task to identify women achievers across sectors and spheres, more so, given the proven fact that people from Maharashtra’s are best known for their dedication and knowledge-driven pursuit way ahead of other priorities in life. Thanks to the collective acumen of our esteemed advisory board, we selected our winners based on the criteria following profound deliberation and articulation. The judicious blend of subjective and objective factors included decisive elements like the achiever's commitment to cause, conviction and purpose, depth of work for the society and also the larger impact of achievements and accomplishments. From the creative and attentive churn of the selection criteria, we have established the following 14 categories of awards for this year.” The Award function will be televised on Sunday, 24^th Aug, 2014 @7pm only on ZEE MARATHI.