The stereotypes about Indian women will be soon forgotten because women are breaking those stereotypes by doing things that were not done before. There are women who are bike riders, transport drivers, sports women, famous business entrepreneurs and even wrestlers. Indian Women have changed the mindsets of people over the years.
It’s not only now that women are becoming stronger and powerful; but even in the olden days, some women were very strong willed and did things that helped the world. These inspirational women are not only inspiration for women kind by to men too. You will feel proud to know that you share the same place of birth with these amazin women – India!
- Tessy Thomas:
Tessy Thomas is the Project Director for Agni-IV missile in Defense Research and Development Organization. She is the first woman scientist to head a missile project in India. She is known as the ‘Missile-Woman’ of India. In January 2012, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told the Indian Science Congress that Mrs Thomas is an example of a “woman making her mark in a traditionally male dominated and decisively breaking the glass ceiling”. The media loves to call her Agniputri, or one born of fire, after the missiles she has helped develop. (wiki)
- Chitra Ramakrishna
Chitra Ramakrishna is the first woman who’s the managing director and CEO of the National Stock Exchange. Ms Ramakrishna had joined the project finance division of IDBI in 1985; that is when her the executive director of IDBI had complimented her for extraordinary work in making the bond issue a success. She was one of the chosen five by the chairman of IDBI, SS Nadkarni, to set up NSE from scratch.
- Indra Nooyi
Indra Nooyi is the chairperson and CEO of PepsiCo which is the second largest food & beverage business in the world. In 2014, she was ranked 13 as on Forbes World’s 100 most powerful women. Nooyi joined PepsiCo in 1994 and became the CFO in 2001. She worked with PepsiCo for a long time hence led restructuring of it too. The companys’ profit was raised to $6.5 million from $2.7 since Nooyi became the CFO. She has been ranked on Forbes ‘The World’s 100 most powerful women’ from 2008 to 2014 continuously and has also made her ranks in Fortune as 1st most powerful women and also made her way to Wall street Journal and Times.
- Nirupama Rao
Nirupama Rao was the second India’s Foreign Secretary from 2009 to 2011, head of foreign service. She was also India’s Ambassabor to United States, China and Sri Lanka during her early career. In 2009, at Rao’s initiative, India sponsored a farmers’ training and information center in in the far western province of Ningxia, a low income area. This was a first in the history of India-China relations.
- Kiran Mazumdar Shaw
Ms. Shaw is an Indian Entrepreneur. She is the chairman and MD of Biocon Limited which is a Biotechnology company based in Banglore. She is also the chairperson of IIM Banglore. She was awarded the Othmer gold Medal in 2014 for her outstanding contributions to science and chemistry. She was inspired by her father was a Master Brewer in United Breweries to become one her self. She went abroad and got the position in Scotland. Leslie Auchincloss, founder of Biocon Biochemicals Limited was looking for an Indian Entrepreneur to set up a subsidiary of Biocon in India. And Kiran agreed to do so and came back to India and started working on the company she had to build Biocon in the garage of her house with a seed capital of Rs. 10k. Her first employee was a garage mechanic. Finally she made it with all the hard work.
- Sarojini Naidu
Sarojini Naidu was the first governor of the Indian State from 1947-1949. She was the first Indian women to become the president of the Indian National Congress in 1925 and the second in the world to do so. During 1915-1918 she traveled to various regions in India giving lectures on social welfare, women empowerment and nationalism. Naidu was a writer and a poet at the age of twelve. In 1905 her first collection of poems was published.
- Kalpana chawla
Kalpana was the first woman of Indian origin who went to space. She flew on Space Shuttle Columbia in 1997 as a mission specialist and primary robotic arm operator. Kalpana obtained a Master of Science degree in aerospace engineering and in 1988 got work at NASA Ames Research Centre. She also held a Certificated Flight Instructor rating for airplanes, gliders and Commercial Pilot licenses for single and multi-engine airplanes, seaplanes and gliders.In 2003, along with Kalpana the other seven crew members were killed in the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster.