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Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw: Founder of India's largest listed biopharmaceutical firm
Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw is an Indian billionaire entrepreneur. She is the chairperson and managing director of Biocon Limited, a biotechnology company based in Bangalore, India and the former chairperson of Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore. She has been awarded the Othmer Gold Medal for outstanding contributions to the progress of science and chemistry and is on the Financial Times’ top 50 women in business list.
Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin: The woman who explained the stars
Cecilia Helena Payne-Gaposchkin was a British-born American astronomer and astrophysicist who proposed in her 1925 doctoral thesis that stars were composed primarily of hydrogen and helium. Her groundbreaking conclusion was initially rejected because it contradicted the scientific wisdom of the time. Independent observations, however, eventually proved she was correct. Additionally Read: Link 1, Link 2.
One of Our Best Biochemists With 16 JACS Papers, She Was Never Awarded By India!
Such was Darshan Ranganathan’s dedication that she got her mother to send jackfruit from India all the way to London, just for her research! In a world where the representation of women in the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) is quite low, the legacy left behind by women like Darshan can be a guiding force for many girls who want to make a mark in the field of science. Additional Read: Link 1
Lisa Caprini Sthalekar: The first woman to score 1,000 runs and take 100 wickets in ODIs.
Lisa Caprini Sthalekar, is an Australian cricket commentator and former cricketer and captain of Australia's international women's cricket team. She is the first woman to score 1,000 runs and take 100 wickets in ODIs and has been awarded the Belinda Clark Award consecutively for the years 2007 and 2008.
Seema Rao is India's first woman commando trainer, having trained Special Forces of India for over two decades.
Seema Rao, sometimes referred to as India's Wonder Woman, is India's first woman commando trainer, having trained Special Forces of India for over two decades without compensation. She is an expert in close quarter battle (CQB) — the art of fighting in tight proximity — and is involved in training various Indian forces.
Muthulakshmi Reddy: Doctor and feminist who led the battle against India's caste-based misogyny
Muthulakshmi Reddy, was an Indian medical practitioner, social reformer and Padma Bhushan award recipient. She was made the first member of the Women's Indian Association, and was subsequently nominated to the Madras Legislative Council. Besides initiating the bill to pass a law against dedicating Devadasis to Hindu temples, she also fought for abolishing the practice of hiring wet nurses for babies born into upper-class families.
FIVE Unsung Women Martyrs of Indian Freedom Struggle
A Jewel Unearthed: Bibha Chowdhuri
This brilliant woman could have won a Physics Nobel for India. Yet few Indians know her story. Neither does the name of Bibha Chowdhuri surface in any of the repositories on Indian women in science, nor is she mentioned even once amongst various lists of women pioneers in the history of Indian science. Had it not been for the painstaking efforts of two physicists, the story of Bibha Chowdhuri would have probably been lost in the pages of history.
A Starry-Eyed Girl Called ‘Monto’: The Untold Story of Kalpana Chawla’s Childhood in India
A role model for countless Indian women, Kalpana was an ordinary girl from Karnal whose lofty dreams and indomitable courage took her to space. Here’s the little known story of her childhood in India.
All you need to know about Shubhangi Swaroop, the Indian Navy's first female pilot
Shubhangi, a native of Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh, was part of the first batch of female officers to graduate from the Indian Naval Academy, Ezhimala, Kannur. A biotechnology engineer from VIT, she is also a national taekwondo champion. Apart from making history, this achievement also holds personal value, for she has now followed in the footsteps of her father Gyan Swaroop, a serving Naval officer.
Arunima Sinha
Arunima Sinha (born 20 July 1988) is the first female amputee to scale Mount Everest and Mount Vinson. She was a national level volleyball player who was pushed from a running train by some robbers in 2011 while she was resisting them. As a result, one of her legs had to be amputated below the knee. Her aim was to climb all the continents' highest peaks and hoist the national flag of India.
Bhawana Kanth: First Female Fighter Pilot Of Indian Air Force
In a step that would encourage young women to make it big in combat role in the Indian Air Force, Flight Lieutenant Bhawana Kanth has created history by becoming the first woman to qualify for combat missions on a fighter jet.
Christina Koch Lands After Record-Breaking 328 Days In Space
NASA astronaut Christina Koch has made all of mankind proud, inspiring millions of women dreaming to be an astronaut like her. She has landed safely on Earth after a record breaking longest single spaceflight by a woman, spending 328 days on the International Space Station, during which she was also part of the first all-female spacewalk with fellow NASA astronaut Jessica Meir.
Domestic Help to International Athlete: The Incredible Journey of a TN Woman!
For 36-year old Vasanthi Anand from Tamil Nadu, life has been quite the roller-coaster ride. As reported by The Times of India, She will run the 5000-meter run, half marathon and steeplechase at the World Masters Athletic Championship to be held at Malaga in Spain this September. Her husband is a private bus driver in the city, and to meet the family’s financial needs, she worked as a domestic help in houses, and washed dishes at a restaurant.
From Cattle Herder to IAS Officer: This TN Woman’s Journey Is Incredibly Inspiring!
Real heroes are ordinary people who fight extraordinary odds and come out on top. C Vanmathi was a cattle herder and while doing so, often thought of becoming a District Collector. Born in a lower-middle-class family, Vanmathi only had her dreams with her. She did follow up on her dreams though – big and audacious as they were. In 2015, she appeared for the UPSC examination and made it among the 1,236 names that featured in the final list.
Harvard economist Gita Gopinath appointed chief economist at IMF
Gita Gopinath has been named as Chief Economist of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), becoming the second Indian to be appointed to the position. Currently, Gopinath is the John Zwaanstra Professor of International Studies and Economics at Harvard University. "Gopinath is one of the world's outstanding economists, with impeccable academic credentials, a proven track record of intellectual leadership, and extensive international experience," IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said.
Homai Vyarawalla
Homai Vyarawalla (9 December 1913 – 15 January 2012), commonly known by her pseudonym Dalda 13, was India's first woman photojournalist. She began work in the late 1930s and retired in the early 1970s. In 2011, she was awarded Padma Vibhushan, the second highest civilian award of the Republic of India. She was amongst the first women in India to join a mainstream publication when she joined The Illustrated Weekly of India.
How Begum Rokeya — India's first Bengali Muslim feminist — dared women to dream
Though Margaret Atwood's evergreen dystopian thriller published in 1985 was one of its kind, it wasn't the first. Eighty years before that, Begum Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain published her feminist utopian fantasy Sultana's Dream, a novella investigating the ironies of a technologically advanced, gender-reversed India (one where men were confined to the "zenana" — the part of a house for the seclusion of women, or as Rokeya terms it, the "mardana" — imagined in the dreams of a woman named Sultana.
Indian airports get their first woman firefighter
The last all-male bastion of Indian aviation has fallen with the Airports Authority of India (AAI) appointing its first ever woman firefighter. Now, Kolkata girl Taniya Sanyal will, in a month, join their ranks after completing training that she is undergoing in the city. Considered a profession only for men, AAI till recently did not have recruitment norms for women firefighters.
Janaki Thevar: The 18-YO Who Commanded Burma’s ‘Rani of Jhansi’ Regiment
The stories of both Subhas Chandra Bose and his Azad Hind Fauj (also known as the Indian National Army or INA) have long been the stuff of legend. Yet few have heard of the ‘Rani of Jhansi’ regiment, an integral part of the INA. Fewer still have heard the extraordinary stories of the ordinary women who made up this all-female regiment. One such unacknowledged heroine is a girl who lived a life of intrigue and danger to help her nation fight colonial rule.
Married Off at 14, This Labourer’s Daughter Today Heads the Maharashtra State Board!
Shakuntala Kale, the chairperson for the Maharashtra State Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education, has undergone incredible struggles to reach where she has today. “Society was regressive and probably still is in many villages. They don’t want women to go out, study or work. But my husband and father-in-law were as supportive as the system would allow it,” she told the daily publication. However, she was determined to make something out of herself.
Meet Dhivya Suryadevara, the Chennai Woman Who Just Became GM’s 1st Female CFO!
The global automobile industry has been traditionally dominated by men. However, this trend is slowly changing and the decision by General Motors, the US-based MNC, to appoint a woman as its Chief Financial Officer for the first time in its history only proves that point. The iconic carmaker’s decision has been met with applause from all across the globe, especially India. Why is that? Well, the new CFO of General Motors is 39-year-old Dhivya Suryadevara, who hails from Chennai.
Meet Parimala Raman, Mathematician & Fellow of All 3 Indian Academies of Science!
India has always had a fascination for Mathematics. From Bhaskaracharya to Srinivasa Ramanujam, Indian mathematicians have made vital contributions to this field. In this long line of eminent math wizards, proudly stands Parimala Raman, a mathematician known globally for her contribution in the field of algebra.
Meet the Karnataka Girl Who Just Became South India’s 1st Woman Fighter Pilot
23-year-old Chikmagalur girl, Meghana Shanbough, scripted history on Saturday, June 16, 2018, after she became the first woman from Karnataka and South India, and the sixth woman fighter pilot of the Indian Air Force (IAF). An engineering graduate, she graduated as Flying Officer from the prestigious Air Force Academy, Dundigal, and will now be deployed to Bidar for advanced training where she will be flying the Hawk.
Poorna Malavath: 'My reason for climbing Mt Everest was to prove girls can achieve anything'
The first time Poorna Malavath saw Mount Everest, she turned to her coach and said cheerfully, “It’s not that tall. We can climb it in a day.” She was 13 years old. Malavath had come to the Everest base camp from a government residential school in Telangana after eight months of gruelling mountaineering training. On 25 May 2014, Malavath, along with her 17-year-old friend S Anand Kumar, summited Everest. She became the youngest girl in the world to have ever done this.
Pune’s Vedangi cycles around the globe in 159 days
On Sunday morning, when Vedangi Kulkarni, 20, cycled into Kolkata,she probably became the fastest Asian woman to cycle around the globe. Having spent 159 days on her bicycle - covering 300 km daily -Kulkarni, who is from Pune's Nigdi area, completed the mandatory 29,000km required to qualify for bicycling across the globe. In the evening, she left for Perth in Australia from where her record-setting cycling trip started in June.
Shivangi Swaroop: First Woman Pilot of Indian Navy
The first woman pilot, Lieutenant Shivangi, has created history by joining the naval operations on completion of operational training in Kochi. With this, Indian Navy is all set to get the first woman pilot for flying fixed-wing Dornier surveillance planes.
The female activist
This was the year that women in diverse situations made significant strides in the wider battle for justice and equality. Even as #MeToo dominated headlines, there were many whose seemingly small acts of tenacity or resistance gave rise to movements for change in 2018.
World's 1st female spacewalking team makes history
As Nasa astronauts Christina Koch and Jessica Meir emerged one by one, it marked the first time in a half-century of spacewalking that a woman floated out without a male crewmate. Nasa originally wanted to conduct an all-female spacewalk last spring, but did not have enough medium-size suits ready to go.
