Dhondo Keshav Karve popularly known as Maharshi Karve, was a social reformer in India in the field of women’s welfare He advocated widow remarriage and he himself married a widow. In his honour, Karvenagar in Pune was named after him & Queen’s Road in Mumbai (Bombay) was renamed to Maharshi Karve Road. Karve was a pioneer in promoting widows’ education founded indian women University .The Government of India awarded him with the highest civilian award, the Bharat Ratna, in 1958, the year of his 100th birthday. During 1891–1914, Karve taught mathematics at Fergusson College in Pune, Maharashtra.
Hailing from Ratnagiri in Maharashtra, Dhondo Keshav Karve, more commonly known as Anna Karve, was instrumental in empowering women in pre-independence India and promoting widows’ education.

The social reformer and educator established the widow Marriage Association in 1893 and in the same year, he shocked everyone after he opted to marry a widow himself. His first wife had passed away earlier in the year 1891.

Continuing with his effort for helping widows, Maharishi Karve even founded an educational institution, Hindu Widows Home, in 1896, in Poona to help widows support themselves, in case they were unable to remarry.

After his retirement from Fergusson College, Puna, where he worked as maths instructor, he started the Shreemati Nathibai Damodar Thackersey Women’s University in 1916. He also worked towards abolishing the caste system and established societies for village primary education.