 As an activist, he has championed a number of causes connected to the environment, the caste system, communalism, religious reform, reform of social practices and so on.In the year 2016 he was awarded with the Ramon Magsaysay Award for “his forceful commitment as artist and advocate to art’s power to heal India’s deep social divisions, breaking barriers of caste and class to unleash what music has to offer not just for some but for all”.Krishna was born in Chennai on 22 January 1976 into a Tamil Brahmin family, the son of T. M. Rangachari and his wife Prema Rangachari.