More Indian Women Are Joining The List Of 'Women To Be Admired'!

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Chhavi Rajawat at the 11th Info-Poverty World Conference at United Nations. (PTI)

My husband told me about Chhavi Rajawat first and then I read about her in The Indian Express and google news too. I couldn't believe after hearing so much news about our villages' 'khaap panchayat' etc. here, one young well educated girl has become the head of a village, Soda (near Jaipur), in our own country, where girls hesitate to go out and work/not allowed to work outside their home, even now. I wonder how the elderly men 'tolerate' to serve under a girl, then this girl has to be really great!

I am quoting from Indian Express here:

There was a sense of disbelief among ministers and ambassadors from diverse nations when the chairperson of the 11th Info-Poverty World Conference held at the United Nations, introduced the jeans-clad Chhavi Rajawat, as head of a village in India.

30 year-old Rajawat, India's youngest sarpanch and the only MBA to become a village head, the position mostly occupied by elders, quit her senior management position with Bharti-Tele Ventures of Airtel Group to serve her beloved villagers as sarpanch.

Rajawat participated in a panel discussion at the two-day meet at the UN on March 24th and 25th, '11, on how 'civil society can implement its actions' and spoke on the role of civil society in fighting poverty and promoting development.

She told the delegates at the conference:

"In the past year alone, I and the villagers in Soda have brought about a radical change in the village purely through our own efforts. We have had no outside support - no NGO help, no public, nor private sector help. In three years, I will transform my village. I don't want money. I want people and organisations to adopt projects in my village as often projects fail, owing to lack of a local connect and that is what I am here to provide by bridging that gap.

I want the conference to help bring about faster change, so that this generation can enjoy the kind of life that I and you in this audience, take for granted"

She said this to thunderous cheers from the delegates.

Wikipedia says: She is an alumni of Rishi Valley School, Bangalore and a management graduate from Indian Institute of Modern Management, Pune, now known as Balaji Institute of Modern Management. Her father Brig. Ragubhir Singh, was the Sarpanch of the village, Soda.

She is beautiful and looks like a model, as the newspaper says, well educated, well employed, even then, she chose to live in her village and do something for her own people. Youngsters like her, would have gone abroad and settled down and lived happily ever after. She has chosen the rough path.

Kudos to this girl, Chhavi Rajawat!

Edited to add in the afternoon of 31.3.11:





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Now, to another woman about whom we should be proud of and she is US Warship Commander, Shanti Sethi!


I came across this news about this lady, Shanti Sethi, who is an Indian-American, now serves as the Commander of the US warship USS Decatur (DDG-73) in a Tamil magazine. The warship had visited India in March this year, on a friendly visit and docked at the Chennai port.

The American embassy (The Indian weekender) statement says:

"The Arleigh Burke-class destroyer is led by Commander Shanti Sethi, an American of Indian descent. Commander Sethi is also the first female commanding officer of a US navy ship to visit Chennai"

The Times of India's article on Shanti Sethi:

"Serving in the US Navy since 1994, Sethi took over the command of USS Decatur in 2010 and leads a predominantly male crew.

Sethi, who was deployed in the Arabian Gulf in 2001, has also served as a navigator onboard USS Hopper. A much-decorated officer, her credits include the Service Medal, navy Commendation Medal and the Navy Achievement Medal (God, the list is so long!). Sethi's is a job with high risks. The primary mission of Decatur is to operate with groups in high-threat environments in the Asia-Pacific region."

Captain Sethi's father is an Indian and mother, an American. She is a native of Nevada. Studied in Norwich University.

I am admiring Shanti Sethi, not only because she is of Indian descent, but because she is captaining a US warship, which, I know is not an easy job to handle. She should be very tough.


Both these women should be appreciated for what they are doing, being women - supposedly the weaker section of our society!

Image courtesy of Shanti Sethi: Indian weekender