Category Personalities

Who became the first woman president of the United Nations General Assembly (in 1953)?

In 1953, India’s Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, pictured at UN Headquarters alongside the then Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld, was elected as the 8th and first woman President.

Vijaya Lakshmi’s father, Motilal Nehru (1861–1931), a wealthy barrister who belonged to the Kashmiri Pandit community, served twice as President of the Indian National Congress during the Independence Struggle. Her mother, Swaruprani Thussu (1868–1938), who came from a well-known Kashmiri Pandit family settled in Lahore, was Motilal’s second wife, the first having died in child birth. She was the second of three children; Jawaharlal was eleven years her senior (b. 1889), while her younger sister Krishna Hutheesing (b. 1907-1967) became a noted writer and authored several books on their brother.

In India, she served as Governor of Maharashtra from 1962 to 1964, after which she was elected to the Indian parliament’s lower house, Lok Sabha, from Phulpur, her brother’s former constituency from 1964 to 1968. Pandit was a harsh critic of Indira Gandhi’s years as Prime Minister especially after her niece had declared the emergency.

Pandit retired from active politics after relations between them soured. On retiring, she moved to Dehradun in the Doon Valley in the Himalayan foothills. She came out of retirement in 1977 to campaign against Indira Gandhi and helped the Janata Party win the 1977 election. She was reported to have considered running for the presidency, but Neelam Sanjiva Reddy eventually ran and won the election unopposed.

 

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As a member of the Expedition 14 crew, which astronaut of Indian origin “established a world record for females with four spacewalks totaling 29 hours and 17 minutes” way back in 2006-2207?

 Williams launched with the crew of STS-116 on December 9, 2006, docking with the International Space Station on December 11, 2006.  As a member of the Expedition 14 crew, Williams served as Flight Engineer.  While onboard, she established a world record for females with four spacewalks totaling 29 hours and 17 minutes.

Williams launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, along with Russian Soyuz commander Yuri Malenchenko and Flight Engineer Akihiko Hoshide of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, on July 14, 2012. They were welcomed on the International Space Station on July 17, 2012, by NASA Flight Engineer Joe Acaba and Russian cosmonauts, Expedition 32 commander Gennady Padalka and Flight Engineer Sergei Revin. Williams spent four months conducting research and exploration aboard the orbiting laboratory. She landed in Kazakhstan on November 18, 2012, after spending 127 days in space. During their Expedition, Williams and Hoshide performed three spacewalks to replace a component that relays power from the space station’s solar arrays to its systems, and repair an ammonia leak on a station radiator. With 50 hours and 40 minutes, Williams once again held the record for total cumulative spacewalk time by a female astronaut (has since been overtaken by Peggy Whitson with 10 spacewalks). In addition, Williams, who has spent a total of 322 days in space on two missions, now ranks sixth on the all-time U.S. endurance list, and second all-time for a female astronaut.

 

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Born in Haryana, which freedom fighter and politician became the country’s first woman Chief Minister in 1963?

Sucheta Kripalani became the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh in 1963.  Born in 1908 in present-day Haryana’s Ambala, Kripalani completed her education from Delhi’s Indraprastha College, before moving on to teach Constitutional History at Banaras Hindu University. Kripalani also established the women’s wing of the Congress party in 1940.

Her role in shaping the contours of an independent India is notable, for she was a member of the Constituent Assembly tasked with formulating the seminal document that would be governing the newly-independent country. She took over as the chief minister of UP from Chandra Bhanu Gupta and occupied the top post till 1967.

Sucheta was married to prominent freedom fighter and politician, Acharya JB Kripalani.

Interestingly, while Acharya became a prominent opponent of Congress and even established a party called Kisan Mazdoor Praja Party (KMPP), Sucheta (apart from a short stint with KMPP) continued to be loyal to the Congress.

 

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In December 2019, which Sub-lieutenant became the first woman pilot in the Indian Navy?

Sub-lieutenant Shivangi became the first woman pilot for the Indian Navy on Monday. Shivangi was born in the city of Muzaffarpur in Bihar.

Shivangi was commissioned into the Indian Navy last year after her initial training. Shivangi joined operational duties at the Kochi naval base today.

She will be flying the Dornier surveillance aircraft of the Indian Navy.

Shivangi Singh was born on 15 March 1994 in Muzaffarpur district of Bihar, India to school teacher Hari Bhushan Singh and house wife Priyanka Singh. Shivangi hails from a humble agricultural background. During her childhood, she was captivated by the sight of seeing a politician using a helicopter to attend a political gathering in her native village, which inspired her to become a pilot. Hari Bhushan Singh, her father, is now the principal of a girls-only government school constructed on land donated by Shivangi’s great grandfather, who donated it to enable people to overcome the conservative abhorrence of educating girls. Her mother Priyanka is a housewife.

She obtained a Bachelor of Technology degree in Mechanical engineering from Sikkim Manipal Institute of Technology and subsequently studied at the Malaviya National Institute of Technology for her Master’s degree.

She is aged 24 (as of 2019) and does not keep a surname.

 

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Who is the youngest tribal woman in the world to set foot on the six tallest mountain peaks across six continents?

In a major feat of mountaineering, 18-year-old Malvath Poorna from Telangana scaled Mt Vinson Massif, the highest mountain peak in Antarctica. Mt Vinson Massif is 4,987 metres above sea level.

With this, Poorna has become the first and youngest tribal woman in the world to set foot on six tallest mountain peaks in six continents. Poorna now aims to become the first and youngest tribal woman to scale the seven tallest summits located in seven continents.

Poorna is an undergraduate in the state’s Social Welfare Residential College for women and is currently a fellow at the Minnesota State University as part of the Global Undergraduate Exchange Program, USA.

Poorna is now gearing up to scale Mount Denali, North America’s highest mountain peak), to achieve her goal of scaling the seven tallest summits located in seven continents.

 

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Who is the author of book “Song of India”?

Reading a Ruskin Bond is very easy. All you need is a quiet corner, a comfortable chair and steaming cup of coffee. Ah, and don’t forget to wrap yourself in a cosy shawl or a blanket. Why? Because it can get chilly, up there in the mountains, where most of Bond’s stories unfold.

Set in the hills and valleys of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, where he spent the most cherished moments of his childhood, Bond’s books give you a glimpse of life on the snow-covered and Deodar-dotted landscapes. Like the misty mountains, Bond’s stories unravel slowly, and leave a deep impression on your mind. Before you know it, Rusty, Binya, Uncle Ken and Rakesh Bond’s unforgettable characters – have become your companions.

Such is the magic of Bond, Ruskin Bond. Generations and generations have grown up reading his books – he has been writing for 70 years now – and yet the bespectacled, rosy-cheeked storyteller from the hills, never seems to run out of yarn.

And last month in July, the octogenarian marked his seventh decade in his literary career, the only way he knows how – by writing another book. This time a part of his memoir series.

Telling his story

Set in 1951, the illustrated book “Song of India” traces the beginning of Bond’s writing career. It follows a 16-year-old Bond as he leaves for England, where he found his calling as a writer and worked on his first book “The Room on the Rook”.

The fourth installment in his memoir series, “A Song of India”, continues Bond’s reflection on his life which began with “Looking for the Rainbow” (2017) and “Till the Clouds Roll By” (2017), “Coming Round the Mountain” was the third book in the series.

What makes his work – the memoirs as well as his other books – special is that Bond always leaves a piece of himself in his stories. And as we get familiar with his characters, we get to know the author himself. So here’s a look at some of the classic Bond characters over the years.

Meet Bond’s classic characters

In a career spanning over 70 years, Bond has written over 600 stories

  • Rusty: In “The Room on the Roof”, we meet the willful and rebellious Rusty, a character Bond partially based on himself.
  • Mehmood: The pride Mehmood takes in making his kites will make you fall in love with this character from the story “Kite Maker.”
  • Uncle Ken: A character based on Bond’s maternal uncle, his eccentricities and misadventures make him a complete laugh riot. And so the stories he appears in are also aptly named “Crazy Times with Uncle Ken” and “At Sea with Uncle Ken.”

Did you know?

  • Bond received €50 for his publication “The Room on the Roof”.
  • Some of Bond’s stories like “’The Blue Umbrella’ and ‘Susanna’s Seven Husbands” have been adopted to Bollywood films. The Hindi film J”unoon” is based on Bond’s historic novella “A Flight of Pigeons.”
  • His favourite and the first book he read in his childhood was Ali in Wonderland: And Other Tall Tales.
  • He wanted to be a tap dancer when he was young.
  • Some of his famous works are “School Days”, “Funny Side Up”, “Garland of Memories”, “Rusty – The Boy from Hills”, “The Room on the Roof”, “Landour Days – A Writer’s Journal”, “A Town Called Dehra”, and “Angry River”.
  • He was awarded the Sahitya Academy Award in 1992 for “Our Trees Still Grow in Dehra”, his novel in English. He was awarded the Padma Shri in 1999 and the Padma Bhushan in 2014.

 

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