NL Beno Zephine

#33/100 in #100extraordinarywomen

NL Beno Zephine is an Indian Diplomat, who is the first 100% visually challenged Indian Foreign Service Officer. Born on 17 April 1990 in Chennai, India to Luke Anthony Charles, an employee of Indian Railways and Mary Padmaja, a home maker, she did her schooling in Little Flower Convent Higher Secondary school for the blind in Chennai, obtained under graduation in English literature from Stella Maris College, Chennai, and further did her post graduation in Loyola College, Chennai.

At the age of 25 years, she created history by becoming the country’s first 100 percent visually challenged Indian Foreign Services (IFS) officer. She had cleared her exam in 2014 but she got her posting only on 12 June 2015. Ever since Zephine received the news from the government of securing the 343rd rank in the Civil Services Examination, she has been busy giving motivational speeches and addressing students across the state. Having gone through all the difficulties and finally emerging as a winner, Zephine advises other people with disabilities to never give up on their dreams and utilise the resources available to them. A post-graduate in English from Madras University, Beno worked as a probationary worker at State Bank of India. But one phone call from the Ministry of External Affairs, who called to confirm her selection in IFS, changed her life forever. A socially active person from childhood, Beno always gave a piece of her mind to those who would leave the taps on and waste water. Her friends and family would call her a “collector” because of her quality to stand for what she believed in.

Visually impaired since birth, Zephine never let her disability come in her way of achieving her dreams. Moreover, an extremely supportive family, friends and teachers made her reach the place where she is today. As there is not enough study material available in Braille, her family and friends read for long hours to help her prepare for her exams. While her father fulfilled her desire of getting any book she required, her mother helped her extensively in the reading process. She also used Job Access With Speech (JAWS), a software that allows the visually challenged to read from a computer screen. The software can be used on a smartphone too. An active student throughout, Zephine participated in various debate and extempore competitions in school and is looking forward to now speaking as a diplomat.

"It is vitally important to discard disability from the mind," she said. Kudos to the girl who has proved that nothing can beat strong determination and hard work. 

Source: Google search

Captain Radhika Menon

#32/100 in #100extraordinarywomen

Captain Radhika Menon will become the first woman in the world to receive the Award for Exceptional Bravery at Sea from the International Maritime Organisation (IMO). Master of the oil products tanker Sampurna Swarajya, she rescued the lives of seven fishermen in the Bay of Bengal last June, and will receive the award at a ceremony at IMO Headquarters on November 21.

After engine failure and loss of anchor because of harsh sea weather, the fishing boat ‘Durgamma’ was caught in a storm. It had drifted from Kakinada in Andhra Pradesh to Gopalpur in Odisha and the seven fishermen onboard were surviving on ice from the cold storage because their food supplies had been washed away. They had lost all hopes of rescue. Radhika Menon was at the helm of the oil tanker Sampurna Swarajya and spotted the vessel 2.5 km away. “Through wave heights of more than 25 feet, winds of more than 60 knots and heavy rain, on 22 June, the second officer on the Sampurna Swarajya spotted the boat 2.5 kilometres away, off the coast of Gopalpur, Odisha. Captain Menon immediately ordered a rescue operation, utilising the pilot ladder and with life jackets on standby,” the Shipping Ministry said in a statement. After three arduous attempts in the lashing wind and rain and heavy swells before all seven weak and starving fishermen, aged between 15 and 50 years, were brought to safety. The fishermen’s families had believed that they were lost at sea and were preparing for their last rites when they received a call about the rescue. They were reunited with their loved ones a few days later.

“It is a maritime obligation to save souls in distress at sea and, as a seafarer and master in command of my ship, I just did my duty,” she told the press. IMO is the United Nations specialised agency, which is responsible for the safety of shipping and the prevention of marine pollution by ships. This annual Award was established by IMO to provide international recognition for those who, at the risk of losing their own life, perform acts of exceptional bravery, displaying outstanding courage in attempting to save life at sea or in attempting to prevent or mitigate damage to the marine environment. Nominations are scrutinized by an Assessment Panel made up of members of non governmental organizations in consultative status with IMO, under the chairmanship of the Secretary-General. Subsequently, a Panel of Judges meets (under the chairmanship of the Chairman of the Council, with the participation of the Chairmen of the Maritime Safety Committee, the Marine Environment Protection Committee, the Legal Committee, the Technical Cooperation Committee and the Facilitation Committee) to consider the recommendations of the Assessment Panel and to select the recipient of the Award. There are three categories of honour: first, the Award itself, for the nominee judged to have performed the most outstanding act of bravery from among those described. Secondly, Certificates of Commendation are awarded to nominees who have committed acts of extraordinary bravery. And, thirdly, Letters of Commendation are sent to those nominees who are judged to deserve some special recognition for meritorious actions.

The recipient of the Award is invited to a special ceremony at IMO to receive a medal and a certificate citing the act of exceptional bravery performed. The Awards ceremony is expected to take place at IMO Headquarters, on 21 November, at the end of the first day of the Maritime Safety Committee (MSC). Captain Menon was nominated by the Government of India and the IMO Council, meeting for its 116th session in London, shared the decision that Captain Menon displayed great determination and courage in leading the difficult rescue operation.

A resident Kodungallur in Kerala, she became the first woman to captain a ship of the Indian Merchant Navy five years ago. She did a one-and-a-half year radio course at the All India Marine College in Kochi before she became a radio officer in Shipping Corporation of India (SCI), the first woman to do so in India.

Source: Various news stories published about the IMO award for Capt. Menon

Hilary Devey

#31/100 in #100extraordinarywomen

“Never one to give up, I have successfully overcome every hurdle obstructing my way and am living proof that if you really set your mind to do something, you can achieve amazing results.” These are the words of the award winning Entrepreneur Hilary Devey CBE who is the inspirational Founder, CEO and Chairman of The Pall-Ex Group. An outstanding role model for entrepreneurs, she has driven her company to an international market-leading position which boasts an annual turnover of more than £100million.

Those who know about her, know her more as a TV personality. But before she became a TV personality, she overcame many a personal battles to reach a position that deserves a mention. Nobody could accuse former BBC Dragon and multi-millionaire freight entrepreneur Hilary Devey of having success handed to her on a plate. The Bolton native left school at 16 before taking on a range of jobs, including a short stint in the Woman's RAF. While working as a clerk at a freight delivery firm, she overheard one of the drivers complain that he would have to wait until morning to fill his lorry with enough cargo to justify driving to his destination. This inspired her to found freight distributing company Pall-Ex in 1996, which got drivers to pool their freight, making distribution quicker and easier. 

Hilary, born on 10 March 1957, grew up in Bolton, Lancashire and, as a seven-year-old child, witnessed the results of the bankruptcy of her father, who had owned a central heating company, when bailiffs removed furniture and household goods from the family home. Her father then earned a living managing pubs and hotels. “My father inspired me the most, because he lost everything, rebuilt from scratch, and still managed to provide for his family,” she said. “He'd originally grown a very large central heating company, where he employed some 300 people at its peak. Unfortunately, things took a turn for the worse – I can remember the bailiffs coming to the house and taking our possessions. Despite this, he was able to get into another business and provide a good living for us all. His mantra was always, 'One door closes and another one opens'. He was a born optimist.”

When she had the idea for Pall-Ex, she knew she would need capital to get it up and running. She needed £112,000 to get going. However, she was turned down by the bank, despite going to them with a business plan so accurate it traded pound for pound and pallet for pallet. She says that the bank manager was a bit of a misogynist. He patted her on the head and said she had no chance. He told her one in every three businesses fail. So she should just go home and look after the child. After being refused funding, she sold her house and car to finance the business, which ultimately netted Hilary her first million at the age of 40. Launched in 1996, Pall-Ex was the third palletised goods distribution network to be launched in the UK. It was based on the well-established hub and spoke express parcels distribution model - this form of pallet network was pioneered by Palletline in 1992. Today, despite having started from nothing, she has grown the company into an international network with a combined turnover of over £100m. Pall-Ex makes daily deliveries to every UK postcode as well as operating a scheduled daily service to 38 European countries with further current expansion planned across Europe. Both Hilary and her company have achieved an impressive array of firsts within the logistics sector.

Thrice-divorced, Hilary has one son. In 2011, Hilary was involved in a struggle to help her 24-year-old son, Mevlit Brewster-Ahmet overcome a seven-year drug addiction. She commented: "The hardest work I've ever done is pulling my son back from the grip of heroin." On 28 October 2012, Hilary spoke on BBC Radio 4 about her family sorrow. Her mother found out, only years after getting together with her father, that he already had a wife and four children. Years later, history repeated itself when Hilary, herself discovered that her ex-partner was also already married with five children.

In 2009, she made history as the first woman to win the prestigious Sir Robert Lawrence award for her contribution to the logistics and transport profession. In 2013, she was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for her services to the transportation industry and to charity. Hilary was awarded the Vitalise Woman of the Year Award in 2008, and an Honorary Doctorate of Law by the University of Leicester in 2010 for her services to industry. Other UK domestic awards have included the Personality of the Year in the International Freight Weekly Awards for 2010. In July 2012, Hilary was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Business Administration by the University of Bolton for services to business. On 16 April 2014, Hilary was also awarded an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Business Administration from the University of Wolverhampton. Hilary is an ambassador of the British Citizen Awards, a ceremony held bi-annually to reward everyday individuals and their contribution to society.

She has also had a varied TV career, going undercover on the Secret Millionaire where she donated more than £70,000 to the Back Door Music Project and the Syke Community Centre in Rochdale. In March 2010, she was the presenter of The Business Inspector for Channel 5, a four-part documentary series which saw her use her business acumen and expertise to help transform struggling small businesses into successful profitable companies. She appeared on two series of Dragons' Den following the departure of James Caan. In September 2012, she presented her final programme for BBC Two, a mini-series called Hilary Devey's Women at the Top, a joint Open University and BBC Two production. More recently, she gave young people a chance to win their dream job on The Intern, and appeared on Running the Shop, where she supervised staff taking over a business while their boss was away.

Nowadays, Hilary campaigns tirelessly for various charities including The Carers Trust for whom she became Vice President in 2012. In addition, she is Patron for The Stroke Association and Fresh Start – New Beginnings. 

Source: Google search and Wikipedia.

Rani Rampal

#30/100 in #100extraordinarywomen

Rani Rampal is an Indian field hockey player. At the age of 15, she was the youngest player in the national team which participated in the 2010 World Cup.

Rani was born on 4 December 1994 in Shahabad, Markanda, a mofussil town of 45,000 inhabitants in the Kurukshetra district of Haryana, to a poor family. Shahabad is to women’s hockey what Sansarpur in Jalandhar once was to men’s hockey, or to the cricket-minded, what Mumbai has been to the Indian team. About 45 players have represented India at senior and junior levels, and Rani is one of them. Her father works as a cart-puller (actually he owns a horse cart). She took to field hockey in 2003 and trained at the Shahbad Hockey Academy under Baldev Singh, a recipient of Dronacharya Award. As she started to play professionally, GoSports Foundation, a sports non-governmental organization provided her with monetary and non-monetary support as her family found it hard to support her dreams financially.

Unlike the men of Sansarpur and Mumbai, Shahabad’s daughters including Rani, in this land of khap panchayats, have broken a seemingly impenetrable glass ceiling too. They have chosen to step out of the four walls, wear shorts and skirts, and take up a pursuit mostly reserved for men. Thanks to their determination and achievements, this way of life is now — willingly or grudgingly — accepted. There’s hope that soon it will probably be celebrated even. For, the women’s hockey team await the confirmation of their maiden qualification to the 2016 Olympics, due to come in October. And India stands on the cusp of history, courtesy the stick of the supremely gifted Rani Rampal. In the World Hockey League semifinals in Belgium earlier this month, she scored the equaliser and the final sudden-death goal in a must-win match against Italy, before scoring the winner against Japan in the last do-or-die encounter. Her decisive interventions meant India finished fifth, which was good enough to all but make the Rio Games.

Rani played in the Champion's Challenge Tournament held in Kazan, Russia in June 2009 and empowered India to a win by scoring 4 goals in the finals. She was adjudged “The Top Goal Scorer” and the “Young Player of the Tournament.” She was also instrumental in winning the silver medal for the Indian team in the Asia Cup held in November 2009. After playing with India's national team at 2010 Commonwealth Games and 2010 Asian Games, Rani Rampal was included in the FIH Women's All Star Team of 2010. She was also included the All Star team of the Asian Hockey Federation based on her performance in 2010 Asian Games at Guangzhou, where the Indian team finished fourth.

At the 2010 Women’s Hockey World Cup held in Rosario, Argentina, she scored a total of seven goals which placed India in the ninth position in World Women's hockey rankings. This was India's best performance since 1978. She is the only Indian to be nominated for the FIH Women's Young Player of the Year Award (2010). She was conferred the “Best Young Player of the Tournament” award at the Women's Hockey World Cup 2010, recognizing her stellar performance as the top field goal scorer in the tournament. She was also adjudged the 'Player of the Tournament' at the 2013 Junior World Cup which India finished with a bronze medal. She was also named for FICCI Comeback of the Year Award 2014.

Recalling the start of Rani’s journey, her father explained, “Mushkil to tha shuru-shuru mein.” Rampal then narrates the story of how he and his wife — one semi-literate, the other illiterate — decided that their six-year-old daughter should not only be sent to school but also enrolled in the town’s hockey academy. There was no precedent in the neighbourhood. Relatives opposed them. Some even questioned the couple’s sanity. Their efforts almost came unstuck on the first day. The academy, which was situated in Rani’s school, had a disciplinarian coach, Baldev Singh. “He saw Rani and he rejected her right away,” recalls Rampal. “He said she was too frail.” The couple didn’t give up and went back the next day. “Perhaps he was in a good mood, because he relented and told Rani to run a few laps around the field,” Rampal remembers. “She did, and he was impressed with her agility. He agreed to coach Rani.”

Baldev Singh, who would later get the Dronacharya award, the highest decoration for a coach in India, remembers the incident differently. It wasn’t down to his mood. “The first thing that struck me was their poverty. But it wasn’t because she was poor or frail that I had declined. It’s just that as a rule we didn’t take any girl under eight. She was barely six, and looked even smaller. But she was so gifted that I had to relax the rule for her. And I am glad I did,” Baldev says.

She was the youngest in the academy, and in the years to come she would be the youngest ever in the Indian team. In 2009, even before she played with the junior national team, Rani made her senior India debut aged 14. Fourteen! Our collective idea of a child prodigy, Sachin Tendulkar, had made his India debut when he was 16. It was an emphatic start; she hammered four goals in the final to give India the title. She finished as the top-scorer in the tournament. “That Champions Challenge tournament in Russia was also one of the stages of the London Olympics qualification process,” says Rani. “I had no idea then what the Olympics were, and why it was such a big fuss. I was playing for fun. For me, back then, the biggest deal was the Commonwealth Games,” she says, shyly.

It’s a statement that puts the Indian women’s hockey team’s latest achievement into perspective. The men in our hockey have grown up on the lore of eight Olympic gold medals. In fact, in all non-cricket sports nowadays, our performance in the Olympics is the main yardstick. The only time an Indian women’s hockey team has appeared in the Olympics was in Moscow 1980, and they were invited to make up the numbers after the West had boycotted. In the absence of Olympic glory or even participation, therefore, India women’s hockey team’s most storied achievement remains the gold medal in the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester. Hence, Rani’s fascination with the CWG. To her, these three letters also mean hope and despair. She remembers the awards and the accolades that the Class of 2002 got. Some, like her mentor Suman Bala, were from Shahabad. Heck, their story inspired the Hindi film Chak De! India.

Rani remembers, too, the awards and accolades that the team of 2010, of which she was a part, didn’t get at CWG Delhi, having missed out on the medal round on goal difference. And the disappointment when the Haryana government opened its purse for all 2010 CWG medal winners from the state. Later that year, 15-year-old Rani was named in the International Hockey Federation’s World XI. But individual honours such as these don’t yield cash prizes. Her father had to keep spurring the horse to put food on the table. “It embarrasses me and pains me to see my father having to drive the cart around even now. But there are no other options. I don’t earn enough,” says Rani, who works as a junior clerk in the railways. “But it’s my source of strength too. You earlier asked me why I don’t get nervous. I will tell you why. We were trailing against Italy, and in the sudden death, I was thinking about my father. I couldn’t afford to be nervous,” Rani says. 

Rani is now part of the Indian Olympics contingent. Olympian Rani. Six years ago, she wouldn’t have given this adjective much of a thought. But today, it’s become a necessity, an obsession and a possible panacea even for her struggles. She feels that a shot at the Olympics will land her a job better than the one she has right now, and provide some sort of financial security to the family. She contrasts her position with Sandeep Singh, one of the two Olympians from Shahabad (the other being former hockey player Sanjeev Dang). Sandeep is a deputy superintendent of police with Haryana police. He lives in the posh HUDA society. In hockey as in life, Rani and Sandeep Singh have few similarities. Sandeep is a good defender and a very fine drag-flicker. She is a striker who often doubles as a mid-fielder. Whenever there is a comparison across the gender divide, Rani is deemed to be more like Sardar Singh. Her electric speed, superior stick work, ball sense and confidence remind you of the current India captain. “Sardar Singh is here,” Rani says, bringing her palm parallel to her eyes, indicating a certain stature. “And I am here,” she says, lowering it all the way to her knee. But she is flattered by the comparison. “Do you know we belong to the same community of potters?” Rani says. “And that he was also named in the FIH All Star in 2010? But he is a big, big name. And also a DSP,” she says. What remains unsaid is this: Sardar earns big bucks in the Hockey Indian League, too, while there is no such thing for a women’s hockey player.

While there is some envy and lament in Rani’s statement, there is also a bit of acceptance of a harsh reality. Rani and her ilk have overcome a rigid, feudal society. They have even become a source of pride in a town whose sex ratio (860) is significantly worse than the rest of the state (879) — which in turn is the worst in the country. But they are helpless against the inherent bias in Indian hockey, Indian sport and the Indian attitude in general. Encouraging its daughters to play isn’t a priority for India. Beti Khilao is not a slogan yet. 

Source: Google search and Wikipedia.

Sandeep Kaur Riat

#29/100 in #100extraordinarywomen

Born and brought up in the family of a hardworking and successful entrepreneur and faced with hardships and insults, Sandeep Riat alias Minnie who, with her sheer grit and determination, emerged as a winner against all odds. After completing her Master's degree in Business Management from Delhi Business School, Sandeep Kaur Riat, had to abandon the plan of joining a corporate. Instead she joined Akal Springs; now a famous name in Ludhiana industry for auto parts but at that time, a close to dead industrial unit.

She remembers the day her father died in 2004. The bank official had told her “Take 15 days to mourn and then clear your debt”, when 22-year-old Sandeep was sobbing near her father’s body. Second among four siblings, Sandeep had just completed her master’s in business management, when she had to take over her father’s sick unit as managing director. It took her four years to clear the debt after which she started working on the unit. But those years were very tough for her, as she faced the daunting task of dealing with umpteen court cases, bank recovery agents, and over 250 employees, who would ask for their salaries almost every day.

She managed to transform the sick unit, which manufactured truck suspensions, into a profit making venture, and today, her company receives orders from major vehicle manufacturers, including Tata Motors and Mahindra and Mahindra, in Jamshedpur, Lucknow for spare parts of trucks, and is also into exporting auto parts. Sandeep took up the challenge with single-minded devotion managed to turn around the company within a few years. With her continued efforts and negotiation skills, she not only made a re-entry in to the suppliers list of prestigious OEM, Mahindra & Mahindra and Tata Motors but also obtained defence contracts and contracts for State Road Transport Undertakings.

Recalling everything, she says, “There were more than 45 court cases against us, including many cheque bounce cases. I used to come to the plant and there used to be about 20 people waiting for me, asking for their money. One day there was a court case at Delhi, another at Chandigarh and the third at Ludhiana court and I was wondering which one to attend. People used to advise me to run away, saying ‘nothing is going to happen’. Many a times, banks requested the DC to send police to our plant for taking it into possession. My mother had undergone a heart surgery and we were completely shattered. But, I told myself that I am not going to run away from all of this,” she says.

Picking up the pieces, Sandeep took one thing at a time and what followed was ardent hard work. “I requested the staff comprising a large number of migrant workers to have faith and continue for some time without wages. They agreed. Then I took a major decision and sold off four-acre land of the plant and shifted entire machinery to the remaining two acres, that helped in getting rid of some debt,” she added.

For starting the work again, she needed money but seven nationalised banks refused to give her loan at that time. “Nobody trusted us, banks used to say I am a woman, and how will I run an industrial unit? Only one bank showed faith and finally we managed to some loan and started the work all over again,” she said. Using business tactics and opening another entity helped developed her business again. “From a period of 2006 to 2008, I worked day and night and do not remember how these years flew by. I don’t even remember celebrating my birthday during these years,” she said. The unit, managed single-handedly by Sandeep, is now raking in huge profits today.

Sandeep was conferred with the LMA - Young Innovative Entrepreneur of the year 2008 and awarded with Parman Patra award by Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal in 2011. She has the ability to create a vision and influence others to contribute to its achievement. Challenge and result oriented, picked up the threads and not only enthusiased the workforce, once again but also regained the confidence of the Distributors / Dealers, thus transforming a sick unit into a profitable company. Despite of the fact that her family has always been a support system to Sandeep, especially her younger brother Amritpal Riat (Director of the Akal Spring Ltd) who is working as a pillar of strength and sharing responsibilities of the company with Sandeep Minnie Riat. Soon the sale zoomed to new heights. The company has achieved excellent growth since 2004 and increased network of customers worldwide. Customer and Service focused strategy; Akal Spring Ltd has once again become the market leader.

“I wish my father was alive to see this day,” she signs off, with moist eyes.

Source: “IDOL- Inspiring Daughters of Ludhiana” Facebook page featuring Sandeep and an article in Hindustan Times about the story.

Bachendri Pal

#28/100 in #100extraordinarywomen

Bachendri Pal earned a coveted place for herself in Indian history by becoming the first Indian woman to summit the Mount Everest, the highest mountain peak in the world. A free-willing, fearless, and adventure-loving girl, Bachendri always dreamt of being a mountaineer. By dint of her hard work and sheer determination, Bachendri Pal created history when she successfully summited the Everest, thereby becoming the first Indian woman to achieve the big feat. An exemplary public figure and a noted mountaineer, Bachendri Pal is revered as an icon for all aspiring mountain climbers. By her extraordinary fete, Bachendri Pal proved that a woman could foray into any field and become successful given she has enough sensibility and determination to work towards it. 

Bachendri Pal was born in May 24, 1954 in a village called Nakuri in Garhwal to parents - Shri Kishan Singh Pal and Smt. Hansa Devi. Her father was a border tradesman who supplied groceries from India to Tibet. From her early childhood, Bachendri Pal was a strong-spirited child and excelled in both academics and sports. It was at the initiation of her school principal that she was sent to college for higher studies. There she actively participated in sports and even bagged a gold medal in rifle shooting. Bachendri Pal went on to become the first girl to graduate from her village. Later on, she completed her M.A. in Sanskrit and then went on to complete her B. Ed. Driven by her passion for adventure, she enrolled in the Nehru Institute of Mountaineering, which opened a whole slew of avenues for her. She encountered stiff opposition from her family and relatives when she decided to opt for a career as a professional mountaineer rather than as a schoolteacher.

Bachendri Pal got her first taste of mountaineering thrill while still at school, at the age of 12 when she along with her friends scaled a 13,123 ft. high peak and during a school picnic. In 1982, during her course at Nehru Institute of Mountaineering, she got the chance to mount Gangotri I (21,900 ft.) and Rudugaria (19,091 ft.). It was during this time, she got the job of an instructor at the National Adventure Foundation, an adventure school for women mountaineers. Soon after the completion of her mountaineering course, she got the chance to join the fourth expedition team headed for India's Mount Everest Mission, the Everest-84. After summitting a number of smaller peaks, she was selected to join India’s first mixed-gender team to attempt an expedition to Mount Everest. She along with her team members commenced their climb on May 1984. However, a sudden landslide at Lhotse glacier left her and her team members injured. However, Bachendri Pal remained undeterred and continued her climb until she reached the peak of the Everest on 23 May 1984 at 1:07 p.m., thereby becoming the first Indian woman and the 5th women in the world to climb the Mt. Everest. It was the team of 6 Indian women and 11 men when they started who were selected to attempt the mountaineering to the Mount Everest. She was the only woman in that group who continued the climbing and reached the summit. 

Pal achieved immediate fame, and in 1985 she returned to Mount Everest to successfully lead an Indo-Nepalese Everest Expedition women's team to the summit. This expedition made seven world records and created a benchmark in Indian mountaineering. She had represented her country as a first Indian woman mountaineer in the France during the “world eminent women mountaineering meet” of 1986. She participated to the summit of Mt. Gangotri for 6672 meter, Mt. Rudugaira for 5819 meter, Mt. Kedarnath dome expedition for 6380 meter in 1986, Mt. Blanc, europe for 15,782 ft in 1986, expedition to the Mt. Mana for 23000 ft in 1983, Mt. Srikailash expedition for 22,744 ft in 1988, Mt. Kamet and Mt. Abi-gamin expedition for 7756 meter and 7735 meter respectively in 1989, Mt. Ruapehu, Mt. Ernslow and Mt. Agrius expedition of New Zealand in 1990 and 1991 etc. She also led the women’s 2nd pre-Everest expedition in 1992 to the Mt. Mamostang Kangri for 24,686 ft and Tata’s Mt. Shivling expedition. In 1993, she organized the Indo-Nepalese Women Everest Expedition and she led an all-woman rafting expedition (18 women in 3 rafts) down the Ganges River from Haridwar to Kolkata in 1994, covering over 1,500 miles (2,500 km). They achieved this feat in 39 days. In 1997 she led an eight member all-woman team on a successful 2,500-mile (4,000-km) transit of the Himalayas, beginning in Arunachal Pradesh and concluding at the Siachen Glacier. She had also participated to the “first women’s international climbing seminar and study tour” of UK in the year 1998. She was leader of the “Vijay rally to kargil” in the year 1999. A rally, which was organized as a journey on the motorbikes by the women mountaineers in order to express the solidarity among Indian as well as a tribute to the brave Indian soldiers.

She has become the member at many organizations such as explorer’s club of New York, Royal geographical society UK, Himalayan mountaineering institute of Darjeeling, India International Centre of New Delhi, Himalayan club at Mumbai, Nehru Institute of mountaineering at Uttarkashi, Indian Mountaineering Foundation at New Delhi and various other government and mountaineering organizations. She is the author of book “Everest – My Journey to the Top”, an autobiography of her published by the national book trust, Delhi.

Bachendri Pal had bagged several awards and recognitions during her mountaineering career. In 1984, she received the first CSR Gold Medal closely followed by a Padmashree in 1984. She got the Calcutta Sports Journalist’s Association Award as well as the National Youth Award in the year 1985 and the Arjuna Award in the year 1986. She also got the Calcutta Ladies Study Group Award in the year 1986 and the FIE Foundation’s National Award in the year 1990. In 1990, her name was also listed in the Guinness Book of World Records for being the first Indian women to summit the Mt. Everest. She received the National Adventure Award in 1994 and a prestigious Yash Bharati Award from the Uttar Pradesh Government in 1995. In 1997, she received the honorary D.Litt. from the University of Garhwal and was also honored with the prestigious Mahila Shiromani Award. It was in this year that her name entered the Limca Book of Records. In 2013, she has been awarded as a first recipient of the Virangana Lakshmibai Rashtriya Samman for 2013-14 by the Ministry of Culture, MP Government for her big achievements in the adventure sports.

Contribution Apart from training corporate and scaling great heights, Bachendri Pal has made significant contribution in training women in mountaineering and river rafting. Bachendri Pal has played a great role towards the society through her big social services. Currently, she runs a big social service in Uttarkashi in association with her colleague Premlata Agarwal and a group of world-class mountain climbers (Mount Everest summiteers). They jointly carried out a relief and rescue operations for the people of villages located at farthest high altitude of Himalayas. Houses of the people living in those villages were destroyed because of the North India floods in 2013. She also has started a training schedule to train the most willing women in mountaineering and river rafting. It was as part of this initiative that she had organized the First Indian Women Trans-Himalayan Expedition, Indo-Nepalese Everest Expedition in 1985 (women’s team), Indo-Nepalese Women Everest Expedition in 1993 and supported in River Ganga Rafting Expedition (Haridwar to Kolkata) in 1994.

Currently, she is working as the Chief of Adventure Programs of Tata Steel Adventure Foundation of Tata Group where she conducts high-altitude training workshops for the corporate workforce. There she gives training to the management teams to bolster up their team spirit by teaching them skills to survive in challenging situations. Apart from this, Bachendri Pal also works as an active guide, training women in mountaineering and river rafting. 

Source: Google search and Wikipedia.

Leda Braga

#27/100 in #100extraordinarywomen

Leda Braga is the first woman ever to have made the cut to Institutional Investor's annual list o f richest hedge fund managers. As the head of Geneva-based Systematica Investments, Braga earned about $60 million last year and snagged the 44th spot on the ranking published recently. That puts her on par with two New York-based managers, Scott Ferguson of Sachem Head Capital Management and Mark Kingdon of Kingdon Capital Management.

Leda Braga, 49, is considered the most powerful female hedge fund manager in the world. In January 2015, she launched her fund, Systematica Investments, a computer-driven fund. Systematica is a computer-driven firm spun out from BlueCrest Capital. Her BlueTrend Fund was up 6.4% this year through April 8, nearly doubling the 3.4% return that it had last year, according to Institutional Investor, which cited the HSBC hedge fund database. Under Braga's helm, Systematica's assets have grown to $10.2 billion as of March 1. She manages more money than any other woman in the hedge fund industry. If this kind of perfomance goes on, Braga may soon land herself a spot on the top 25 list.

Before heading out on her own, Braga spent 14 years managing BlueCrest's biggest fund - computer-driven BlueTrend fund. Before that, she worked with BlueCrest's founders at JPMorgan as a quantitative analyst on the firm's derivatives research team. Going it alone is working out for Leda Braga, the Brazilian-born hedge fund manager who left Michael Platt’s BlueCrest Capital Management in January 2015. Her standalone firm now oversees more than his for the first time, according to a person familiar with the matter. The Brazilian-born portfolio manager, who holds a PhD from Imperial College, joined BlueCrest when she was 34-weeks pregnant. In the male-dominated world of Wall Street, Braga said she hasn't experienced difficulties.

"What can I say? Me, personally, I've always liked to work," she said at the CNBC Delivering Alpha Conference held at the Pierre Hotel in Midtown Manhattan on Wednesday. The "queen of the quants," as Braga is sometimes known, told the room that in the next ten years, the systematic approach the trading - the one she deploys - will prevail. When it comes to making trades, there are two contrasting approaches -discretionary and systematic. Discretionary trading relies on the fund manager's own decision-making. Systematic trading uses computer models, research firm Preqin explained. "I think in a world where there's regulatory pressures, investor pressure for lower fees... I think the systematic approach will prevail in the long run. I think the next ten years for sure," Braga said. During her talk, Braga shared an anecdote from a previous conference where an audience member questioned the merits of algorithmic trading. A man sitting in the front row challenged her method, saying: "All you've got to forecast to the future is the data." Braga rebuked him, saying, "You think the discretionary guy has what? A crystal ball? At the end of the day, the business of investment management is the business of information management. I think the algorithmic approach is very good approach to do it." Braga conceded that systematic trading does face a "stumbling block" - something called "algorithmic aversion." "She's so impressive," one attendee was overheard saying.

Research from UPenn's Wharton has found that even if an algorithm consistently outperforms a human forecaster, people are more likely to lose confidence in the algorithm than the human after they both make the same mistake. The reason, according to an HBS paper on the research, is that there's a belief the human forecaster can make improvements and learn from the mistake. But Braga says algorithms can improve too. "[We] know these things work and yet we shy away from them," Braga said. "We scrutinize the algos with a lot less tolerance than we scrutinize human action." Braga thinks that over time people will become more "amiable" toward algorithms - especially since we live in a world full of them, from Apple to Uber. 

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