Dr. Neena Gupta

#35/100 in #100extraordinarywomen

Call it a geek streak, but Neena would rather spend her evening solving math problems. It is unadulterated passion for the subject that has made this Indian National Science Academy topper who she is today. Dr. Neena Gupta, an Indian math prodigy has proved that sky is the limit for some. After Shakuntala Devi, she has filled the void that was left opened and has made an outstanding achievement in the field of mathematics.

Last year, Neena Gupta of Kolkata became a recipient of the prestigious Indian National Science Academy (INSA) Medal for Young Scientists for solving a math problem, which astonishingly enough, remained open for almost 70 years! The math problem that no one but Neena could solve in decades is called the Zariski Cancellation Conjecture. INSA described her solution as, “one of the best works in Algebraic Geometry in recent years done anywhere.” In addition to the INSA award, she was also awarded the Ramanujan Prize (2014), and the Saraswathi Cowsik Medal (2013) by Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) Alumni Association.

But Neena is still looking for ‘solutions’. There's so much yet to be learned and explored — and she is absorbed in commutative algebra at the moment. Since what she does is academia driven, she spends her time equally between teaching and research. At the moment she is a full time faculty member at INSA (where, incidentally, she also studied), a visiting faculty member at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Mumbai, and a visiting scientist at the Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata. She credits her dad and husband for where she is today. “Most girls in our community get married right after graduation. But, my dad let me get a PhD despite societal pressure. He never questioned my life choices — and my husband continues to extend the same support.”

But, this is not the end for Neena, who thinks that sky’s the limit as she continues to learn and explore further. At the moment, she has kept herself drowned in commutative algebra. She is a living example for those who are against educating girls. We need to understand that by educating a girl we can eliminate the root cause for many problems, such as poverty, population.

Source: Google Search

J.K. Rowling

#34/100 in #100extraordinarywomen

This post is about 2 days late. I would have loved to publish this on 31st July, J.K. Rowling’s birthday (also Harry Potter’s birthday) but there is just so much written material on the internet that coming out with a brief and crisp summary itself took time. However, I doubt I succeeded quite.

Joanne "Jo" Rowling, pen names J. K. Rowling and Robert Galbraith, and known simply as "Jo" among friends and family, is a British novelist, screenwriter and film producer best known as the author of the Harry Potter fantasy series. The books have gained worldwide attention, won multiple awards, and sold more than 400 million copies. They have become the best-selling book series in history and been the basis for a series of films which is the second highest-grossing film series in history. Rowling had overall approval on the scripts and maintained creative control by serving as a producer on the final instalment.

Rowling was born to Peter James Rowling, a Rolls-Royce aircraft engineer, and Anne Rowling (née Volant), a science technician, on 31 July 1965 in Yate, Gloucestershire, England, 10 miles (16 km) northeast of Bristol. Her parents had first met on a train departing from King's Cross Station bound for Arbroath in 1964. They married on 14 March 1965. Rowling's sister Dianne was born at their home when Rowling was 23 months old. The family moved to the nearby village Winterbourne when Rowling was four. She attended St Michael's Primary School, a school founded by abolitionist William Wilberforce and education reformer Hannah More. Her headmaster at St Michael's, Alfred Dunn, has been suggested as the inspiration for the Harry Potter headmaster Albus Dumbledore. As a child, Rowling often wrote fantasy stories which she frequently read to her sister. Aged nine, Rowling moved to Church Cottage in the Gloucestershire village of Tutshill, close to Chepstow, Wales. She attended secondary school at Wyedean School and College, where her mother worked in the science department. When she was a young teenager, her great-aunt gave her a copy of Jessica Mitford's autobiography, Hons and Rebels. Mitford became Rowling's heroine, and Rowling read all of her books. Rowling has said that her teenage years were unhappy. Her home life was complicated by her mother's illness and a strained relationship with her father, with whom she is not on speaking terms. 

In 1982, Rowling took the entrance exams for Oxford University but was not accepted and read for a B.A. in French and Classics at the University of Exeter. After a year of study in Paris, Rowling graduated from Exeter in 1986 and moved to London to work as a researcher and bilingual secretary for Amnesty International. In 1988, Rowling wrote a short essay about her time studying Classics entitled "What was the Name of that Nymph Again? or Greek and Roman Studies Recalled"; it was published by the University of Exeter's journal Pegasus. After working at Amnesty International in London, Rowling and her then boyfriend decided to move to Manchester, where she worked at the Chamber of Commerce. In 1990, while she was on a four-hour-delayed train trip from Manchester to London, the idea for a story of a young boy attending a school of wizardry "came fully formed" into her mind. When she had reached her Clapham Junction flat, she began to write immediately. In December, Rowling's mother Anne died after ten years suffering from multiple sclerosis. Rowling was writing Harry Potter at the time and had never told her mother about it. Her death heavily affected Rowling's writing, and she channeled her own feelings of loss by writing about Harry's own feelings of loss in greater detail in the first book.

Rowling moved to Porto to teach. In 1993, she returned to the UK accompanied by her daughter and three completed chapters of Harry Potter after her marriage had deteriorated. An advert in The Guardian led Rowling to move to Porto, Portugal, to teach English as a foreign language. She taught at night and began writing in the day while listening to Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto. After 18 months in Porto, she met Portuguese television journalist Jorge Arantes in a bar and found they shared an interest in Jane Austen. They married on 16 October 1992 and their child, Jessica Isabel Rowling Arantes (named after Jessica Mitford), was born on 27 July 1993 in Portugal.[25] Rowling had previously suffered a miscarriage. The couple separated on 17 November 1993. Biographers have suggested that Rowling suffered domestic abuse during her marriage, although the full extent is unknown. In December 1993, Rowling and her then-infant daughter moved to Edinburgh, Scotland, to be near Rowling's sister.

Seven years after graduating from university, Rowling saw herself as a failure. Her marriage had failed, and she was jobless with a dependent child, but she described her failure as liberating and allowing her to focus on writing. During this period, Rowling was diagnosed with clinical depression and contemplated suicide. Her illness inspired the characters known as Dementors, soul-sucking creatures introduced in the third book. Rowling signed up for welfare benefits, describing her economic status as being "poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain, without being homeless." Rowling was left in despair after her estranged husband arrived in Scotland, seeking both her and her daughter. She obtained an Order of Restraint, and Arantes returned to Portugal, with Rowling filing for divorce in August 1994. She began a teacher training course in August 1995 at the Moray House School of Education, at Edinburgh University, after completing her first novel while living on State benefits. She wrote in many cafés, especially Nicolson's Café (owned by her brother-in-law, Roger Moore), and the Elephant House, wherever she could get Jessica to fall asleep.

In 1995, Rowling finished her manuscript for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone on an old manual typewriter. Upon the enthusiastic response of Bryony Evens, a reader who had been asked to review the book's first three chapters, the Fulham-based Christopher Little Literary Agents agreed to represent Rowling in her quest for a publisher. The book was submitted to twelve publishing houses, all of which rejected the manuscript. A year later she was finally given the green light (and a £1500 advance) by editor Barry Cunningham from Bloomsbury, a publishing house in London. The decision to publish Rowling's book owes much to Alice Newton, the eight-year-old daughter of Bloomsbury's chairman, who was given the first chapter to review by her father and immediately demanded the next. Although Bloomsbury agreed to publish the book, Cunningham says that he advised Rowling to get a day job, since she had little chance of making money in children's books. Soon after, in 1997, Rowling received an £8000 grant from the Scottish Arts Council to enable her to continue writing. In June 1997, Bloomsbury published Philosopher's Stone with an initial print run of 1,000 copies, 500 of which were distributed to libraries. Today, such copies are valued between £16,000 and £25,000. Five months later, the book won its first award, a Nestlé Smarties Book Prize. In February, the novel won the British Book Award for Children's Book of the Year, and later, the Children's Book Award. In early 1998, an auction was held in the United States for the rights to publish the novel, and was won by Scholastic Inc., for US$105,000. Rowling said that she "nearly died" when she heard the news. In October 1998, Scholastic published Philosopher's Stone in the US under the title of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. Rowling moved from her flat with the money from the Scholastic sale, into 19 Hazelbank Terrace in Edinburgh.

Its sequel, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, was published in July 1998 and again Rowling won the Smarties Prize. In December 1999, the third novel, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, won the Smarties Prize, making Rowling the first person to win the award three times running. She later withdrew the fourth Harry Potter novel from contention to allow other books a fair chance. In January 2000, Prisoner of Azkaban won the inaugural Whitbread Children's Book of the Year award, though it lost the Book of the Year prize to Seamus Heaney's translation of Beowulf. The fourth book, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, was released simultaneously in the UK and the US on 8 July 2000 and broke sales records in both countries. 372,775 copies of the book were sold in its first day in the UK, almost equalling the number Prisoner of Azkaban sold during its first year. In the US, the book sold three million copies in its first 48 hours, smashing all records. Rowling said that she had had a crisis while writing the novel and had to rewrite one chapter many times to fix a problem with the plot. Rowling was named Author of the Year in the 2000 British Book Awards. A wait of three years occurred between the release of Goblet of Fire and the fifth Harry Potter novel, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. The sixth book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, was released on 16 July 2005. It too broke all sales records, selling nine million copies in its first 24 hours of release. In 2006, Half-Blood Prince received the Book of the Year prize at the British Book Awards. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was released on 21 July 2007 (0:01 BST) and broke its predecessor's record as the fastest-selling book of all time. It sold 11 million copies in the first day of release in the United Kingdom and United States.

The books also had film adaptations, becoming not just one of the highest grossing film series, but creating mammoth stars out of the starcast including Daniel Radcliff (portraying titular role of Harry Potter), Emma Watson (as Hermoine Granger) and Rupert Grint (as Ronald “Ron” Weasley). Warner Bros., who bought the rights to the books, took considerable notice of Rowling's desires and thoughts when drafting her contract. One of her principal stipulations was the films be shot in Britain with an all-British cast, which has been generally adhered to. Rowling also demanded that Coca-Cola, the victor in the race to tie in their products to the film series, donate US$18 million to the American charity Reading is Fundamental, as well as several community charity programs. The first four, sixth and seventh films were scripted by Steve Kloves; Rowling assisted him in the writing process, ensuring that his scripts did not contradict future books in the series. Rowling had gained some creative control on the films, reviewing all the scripts as well as acting as a producer on the final two-part instalment, Deathly Hallows. Rowling, producers David Heyman and David Barron, along with directors David Yates, Mike Newell and Alfonso Cuarón collected the Michael Balcon Award for Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema at the 2011 British Academy Film Awards in honour of the Harry Potter film franchise. In September 2013, Warner Bros. announced an "expanded creative partnership" with Rowling, based on a planned series of films about Newt Scamander, author of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. The first film will be scripted by Rowling, marking her official debut as a screenwriter, and be set roughly 70 years before the events of the main series. In 2014, it was announced that the series would consist of three films. In October 2015, Rowling announced that a two part play she has co-authored with playwrights Jack Thorne and John Tiffany, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, was the 'eighth Harry Potter story' and that it would focus on the life of Harry's Potter's youngest son Albus after the epilogue of the Deathly Hallows. On 28 October 2015, the first round of tickets went on sale and sold out in several hours.

Harry Potter is now a global brand worth an estimated US$15 billion, and the last four Harry Potter books have consecutively set records as the fastest-selling books in history. The series, totalling 4,195 pages, has been translated, in whole or in part, into 65 languages. And it also happens to be the highlight of Rowling’s "rags to riches" life story, in which she progressed from living on state benefits to multi-millionaire status within five years. In 2004, Forbes named Rowling as the first person to become a U.S.-dollar billionaire by writing books, the second-richest female entertainer and the 1,062nd richest person in the world. Rowling disputed the calculations and said she had “plenty of money”, but was not a billionaire. She is the United Kingdom's best-selling living author, with sales in excess of £238m. The 2016 Sunday Times Rich List estimated Rowling's fortune at £600 million, ranking her as the joint 197th richest person in the UK. Time magazine named her as a runner-up for its 2007 Person of the Year, noting the social, moral, and political inspiration she has given her fans. In October 2010, Rowling was named the "Most Influential Woman in Britain" by leading magazine editors. Rowling has received several awards for her works as well as honorary degrees from St Andrews University, the University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh Napier University, the University of Exeter, the University of Aberdeen and Harvard University, for whom she spoke at the 2008 commencement ceremony. After having been conferred with the Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE), for services to Children's literature in the year 2000, Rowling was made a Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur by French President Nicolas Sarkozy in 2009.

In 2000, Rowling established the Volant Charitable Trust, which uses its annual budget of £5.1 million to combat poverty and social inequality. The fund also gives to organisations that aid children, one parent families, and multiple sclerosis research. Rowling, once a single parent, is now president of the charity Gingerbread (originally One Parent Families), having become their first Ambassador in 2000. Rowling collaborated with Sarah Brown to write a book of children's stories to aid One Parent Families. In 2001, the UK anti-poverty fundraiser Comic Relief asked three best-selling British authors – cookery writer and TV presenter Delia Smith, Bridget Jones creator Helen Fielding, and Rowling – to submit booklets related to their most famous works for publication. Rowling's two booklets, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and Quidditch Through the Ages, are ostensibly facsimiles of books found in the Hogwarts library. Since going on sale in March 2001, the books have raised £15.7 million for the fund. The £10.8 million they have raised outside the UK have been channelled into a newly created International Fund for Children and Young People in Crisis. In 2002 Rowling contributed a foreword to Magic, an anthology of fiction published by Bloomsbury Publishing, helping to raise money for the National Council for One Parent Families. In 2005, Rowling and MEP Emma Nicholson founded the Children's High Level Group (now Lumos). In January 2006, Rowling went to Bucharest to highlight the use of caged beds in mental institutions for children. To further support the CHLG, Rowling auctioned one of seven handwritten and illustrated copies of The Tales of Beedle the Bard, a series of fairy tales referred to in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. The book was purchased for £1.95 million by on-line bookseller Amazon.com on 13 December 2007, becoming the most expensive modern book ever sold at auction. Rowling gave away the remaining six copies to those who have a close connection with the Harry Potter books. In 2008, Rowling agreed to publish the book with the proceeds going to Lumos. In November 2013, Rowling handed over all earnings from the sale of The Tales of Beedle the Bard, totalling nearly £19 million. 

Rowling has contributed money and support for research and treatment of multiple sclerosis, from which her mother suffered before her death in 1990. In 2006, Rowling contributed a substantial sum toward the creation of a new Centre for Regenerative Medicine at Edinburgh University, later named the Anne Rowling Regenerative Neurology Clinic. In 2010 she donated a further £10 million to the centre. In 2003, Rowling took part in a campaign to establish a national standard of care for MS sufferers. In April 2009, she announced that she was withdrawing her support for Multiple Sclerosis Society Scotland, citing her inability to resolve an ongoing feud between the organisation's northern and southern branches that had sapped morale and led to several resignations.

In May 2008, bookseller Waterstones asked Rowling and 12 other writers (Sebastian Faulks, Doris Lessing, Lisa Appignanesi, Margaret Atwood, Lauren Child, Richard Ford, Neil Gaiman, Nick Hornby, Michael Rosen, Axel Scheffler, Tom Stoppard and Irvine Welsh) to compose a short piece of their own choosing on a single A5 card, which would then be sold at auction in aid of the charities Dyslexia Action and English PEN. Rowling's contribution was an 800-word Harry Potter prequel that concerns Harry's father, James Potter, and godfather, Sirius Black, and takes place three years before Harry was born. The cards were collated and sold for charity in book form in August 2008. On 1 and 2 August 2006, she read alongside Stephen King and John Irving at Radio City Music Hall in New York City. Profits from the event were donated to the Haven Foundation, a charity that aids artists and performers left uninsurable and unable to work, and the medical NGO Médecins Sans Frontières. In May 2007, Rowling pledged a donation reported as over £250,000 to a reward fund started by the tabloid News of the World for the safe return of a young British girl, Madeleine McCann, who disappeared in Portugal. Rowling, along with Nelson Mandela, Al Gore, and Alan Greenspan, wrote an introduction to a collection of Gordon Brown's speeches, the proceeds of which were donated to the Jennifer Brown Research Laboratory. After her exposure as the true author of The Cuckoo's Calling led a massive increase in sales, Rowling announced she would donate all her royalties to the Army Benevolent Fund, claiming she had always intended to, but never expected the book to be a bestseller. Rowling is a supporter of The Shannon Trust, which runs the Toe by Toe Reading Plan and the Shannon Reading Plan in prisons across Britain, helping and giving tutoring to prisoners who cannot read.

Several years after she wrote the final Harry Potter book, she continues to enthral young readers with the world of magic; just as she continues to inspire everyone to not take “No” as an answer, continue to strive for success and never give up on one’s dream.

Source: Wikipedia

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.