From Scientists to Trailblazers, Meet 7 Winners of the Nari Shakti Awards

On International Women's day, the Indian government is recognising the work of 31 individuals and organisations towards empowering women. Here are some of them.

By Aishhwariya Subramanian

March 7, 2017

On March 8, when the world celebrates International Women’s Day, India will be recognising the extraordinary achievements of 31 individuals and organisations that are working towards empowering women.

Instated by Ministry of Women and Child development, the annual Nari Shakti awards will be presented by the President of India, Pranab Mukherjee. Previous winners have included high-achieving women like comedian and environmentalist Vasu Primlani.

Here are seven of the winners who will be getting recognised for their contributions this year:

Anatta Sonney

Anatta Sonney is a scientist working for the famed Indian Space Research Organisation. Based out of Bengaluru, her expertise lies in the field of statistics, analysis and algebra. She is currently working as part of the Flight Dynamics Group at the satellite centre.

Reema Sathe

The founder of the company Happy Roots, Reema works towards the betterment of those involved in agriculture. Her company is dedicated to food innovation along with rural development. It works at increasing the wages of rural farmers.

Zuboni Humtsoe

Zuboni is also an entrepreneur who founded the company Preciousmelove (PML). It is an all-girls team from Nagaland that focuses on creating and selling fashion apparel and accessories.

http://www.preciousmelove.com/

Subhu Varier

Subhu Varier is also another scientist from ISRO walking away with the prestigious award. Most recently she participated in the Twitter campaign called #WeAreEqual that celebrated gender equality.

Ms. Subha Varier from @isro shares her message of equality. #WeAreEqual pic.twitter.com/4oZNDgcBYp
— Ministry of WCD (@MinistryWCD) February 28, 2017

B Codanayaguy

She is the third scientist from ISRO who will be getting the award. The three women will actually be sharing it as a result of having worked on the successful launch of 104 satellites in one day. She is the group head of Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) at Sriharikota Range.

Sheroes

Located in Agra, Sheroes is a cafe with a unique and empowering twist – it is run by acid attack survivors. Started by an NGO called Chaav Foundation, the hangout has become so popular that it has already opened a second centre in Lucknow and will be opening another in Udaipur.

The award will be shared by the women who work in the Agra set-up.

Photo source: Facebook

Mumtaz Kazi

Mumtaz is a true trailblazer. Despite having come from an orthodox family, she became the first woman from India to to drive a diesel locomotive thus inspiring millions in the country.

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