Anita
Anand
Anita Anand is the director of the Women's Feature Service (WFS),
a non-profit audio-visual syndicated news and feature service based
in New Delhi. It has more than 60 correspondents in Africa, Asia,
Latin and North America
WFS specializes in women's
issues, notably the criminalization and other forms of violence against
women such as dowry murders and sexual harassment. Ms. Anand calls
the media a microcosmic mirror of how women continue to be sidelined.
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Shabana
Azmi
Ms. Azmi is an elected member of the Indian Parliament in Rajya Sabha
(House of the States). She is also a well-known, award-winning actress
and political activist. Her regular presence in new wave films has
made her the most prominent star spawned by the New Indian Cinema.
As an activist, she is associated with the Nivara Hakk Samrakshan
Samiti, fighting the cause of Mumbai's slum and pavement dwellers,
and with various anti-communal organizations, playing an effective,
high-profile role such as in the 1993 communal riots in Bombay.
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Kiran
Bedi
The first woman Police Inspector-General of India.
She broke new ground by joining the elite Indian Police Service in
1972, the first woman in India to do so. She is today the most celebrated
police officer, having been awarded the Ramon Magsaysay Award for
government service, also called the Asian Nobel Prize, the Joseph
Beuys Award by a German foundation and the Asia Region Award for Drug
Prevention & Control by the International Organization of Good
Templars (IOGT) a Norwegian organization.
Besides her professional contributions,
two voluntary organizations founded and supervised by her —
Navjyoti, set up in 1988 and India Vision Foundation in 1994, reach
out to thousands of poor children daily for primary education; women
for adult literacy; provide vocational training and counseling services
in the slums, rural areas and inside the prison apart from treatment
for drug addiction. She and her organizations today stand nationally
and internationally recognized, with the latest award being given
by the United Nations — the Serge Sotiroff Memorial Award for drug
abuse prevention.
More about Kiran Bedi on:
Phoolan
Devi
Member of Parliament and was notoriously known in India as the Bandit
Queen. Revered and respected or hated and feared, people's perceptions
of Phoolan Devi vary. A fisherfolk's daughter, some see her as a victim
of India's oppressive caste structure, while many see her as a modern-day
female Robin Hood and heroine of the masses who took revenge on 22
upper caste Thakurs, who had subjected her to gang rape, by
killing them in 1981. She surrendered to the police in 1984 and served
time till 1994. She was elected to the Parliament's lower house in
1996.
The legendary 'Bandit Queen'
was gunned down by three masked men outside her official residence
in New Delhi on July 25, 2001. Her tumultuous life inspired Shekhar
Kapur's Oscar nominated movie titled Bandit Queen in 1994.
More about Phoolan Devi on:
Indira
Gandhi
Indira Gandhi was the first women Prime Minister of India and an important
world stateswoman. She was born in Allahabad, in the state of Uttar
Pradesh. She was the only child of Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime
Minister of India. She was a great crusader of world peace.
Indira Gandhi became the third
Prime Minister of India on January 24,1966 and remained in this post
up to 1977. In 1975, her election to Parliament was declared invalid
and she declared internal emergency, which led to her defeat in 1977
elections. Indira Gandhi returned to power in 1980 with an overwhelming
majority.
Mrs. Gandhi, met her tragic
end on 31st October 1984, when she was brutally assassinated by her
own guards.
Read more about Indira Gandhi
on:
Maneka
Gandhi
Minister of Social Justice and Empowerment (as of January
2001), Maneka Gandhi is the daughter-in-law of Indira Gandhi. She
was elected into the Lok Sabha (Lower House) in 1998. A dedicated
animal rights activist and environmentalist, she is a founder member
of People for Animals and chairperson of the Delhi Society for the
Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
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The striking 26-year old daughter of former prime minister Rajiv and
Congress Party President Sonia Gandhi, has so far shunned an official
role in the Congress Party. But she pointedly retained the Gandhi
family name after her marriage to Robert Vadra, a jewellery designer
and exporter. Rumor has it that she will be joining the Youth Congress,
and probably will become its leader. She campaigned for her mother
in the September 1999 elections and almost stole the limelight from
her.
More on Priyanka on Priyanka's website.
Sonia
Gandhi
President of India's century-old Congress party. Being the third woman
of foreign origin to hold the prestigious post after Annie Beasant
and Nelli Sengupta, Sonia Gandhi also became the fifth from the Nehru
family to take over the Congress reins. The other four were Motilal
Nehru, Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi, her slain
husband. Though she was born in Italy, Sonia Gandhi has emerged as
the most potent political force in India’s elections. Almost single-handedly,
she has revitalized the Congress Party, winning back much of its traditional
political base of minorities and the poor.
More about Sonia Gandhi on:
Sonia
Gandhi
Mrinal
Gore
Indira
Jaising
The most prominent woman lawyer in India, Indira Jaising has handled
the Roopan Deol Bajaj and the Bhopal disaster case, among others.
She takes a special interest in cases related to injustice toward
women. Her motto is "Women's Rights are Human Rights". She
was the one who started the campaign for women's legal rights years
ago. Over the years she has fought against child labor, for the economic
rights of women and estranged wives.
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Jayalalitha
Jayaraman
Former Chief Minister of the southern
Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Before entering politics Ms. Jayalalitha
is a popular film star. A devoted follower of MG Ramachandran, the
legendary Tamil Nadu actor and politician, she was included in his
Cabinet over the opposition of other longtime party members. After
his death in 1988, she consolidated her power independently, becoming
party leader of the AIADMK. She was jailed on corruption charges after
her stint as Chief Minister. She continues to be the leader of Tamil
Nadu politics especially since she established new alliance with the
ruling BJP.
Vipula
Kadri
She is a renowned Social Worker and founder of PRIDE
INDIA, SAVE THE CHILDREN
and WISE.
Under her leadership, these organizations have been helping to improve
the quality of life of underprivileged children & women. Ms. Kadri
is also the director of Rural Hospital "SPARSH" at Sastur,
Osmanabad district - where the devastated earthquake took place in
1993- which was initiated, completed and is now being run by PRIDE
INDIA & SAVE THE CHILDREN jointly. Her work experience also includes
the task of rescuing and rehabilitating young victims of sexual exploitation
in India & Nepal and Aids Awareness. She is a member of Maharashtra
State Social Welfare Board.
Medha
Patkar
In 1985 Patkar began mobilizing massive marches and rallies against
the project, and, although the protests were peaceful, she was repeatedly
beaten and arrested by the police. She almost died during a 22-day
hunger strike in 1991. Undaunted, she undertook two more long protest
fasts in 1993 and 1994. She and her organization later filed a case
to the Indian Supreme Court to stop the construction of the dam.
As an outgrowth of her work
to stop dam construction, Patkar has helped establish a network of
activists across the country - the National Alliance of People's Movements.
In 1992, she was awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize, the world's
largest prize program honoring grassroots environmentalists.
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